,1  ■■'■^§^m'-^''m^^ 


L»SURGERY 


H.  A.  WALTER,  M.  A. 


LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON.  N.  J. 


PRESENTED  BY 


Mrs.   Huston  Dixon 


BV  4487  .09  W35  1919 

Walter,  Howard  Arnold, 

1883- 

1918. 

Soul-surgery 

JT 


r-9>'<f^.^   tO-C-'T'grt  «^i*^^^ 


Howard  Arnold  Walter,  M.  A. 


SOUL-SURGERY 

Some  Thoughts  on  Incisive 
Personal  Work 


/ 


BY 

H.  A.  WALTER,  M.  A. 

LITERARY  SECRETARY.  NATIONAL  COUNCIL, 

YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS 

OF  INDIA  AND  CEYLON 


ASSOCIATION  PRESS 

PUBLICATION  DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  NATIONAL 

COUNCIL  Y.M.C:A.  OF  INDIA  AND  CEYLON 

5  RUSSELL  STREET.  CALCUTTA 

19  19 


RECORD   PRESS 

NEW   BRITAIN^   CONN 
1921 


CONTENTS 


Page 
Meimories  of  Howard  Arnold  Walter 7 

Foreword    , 16 

The  Importance  oe  Personal  Evangelism  ...  19 

Method  of  Personal  Evangelism 36 

1.  Confidence    49 

2.  Confession    66 

3.  Conviction    97 

4.  Conversion    117 

5.  Conservation    131 


PREFACE 

This  little  book  was  published  as  a  series  of  ar- 
ticles in  the  Indian  Witness  with  special  reference  to 
the  Evangelistic  Campaign  now  going  on  in  the  Indian 
Church.  It  met  with  such  a  wide  appreciation  that  it 
was  decided  to  publish  it  in  book  form  as  soon  as 
possible,  so  that  it  might  be  permanently  useful  to  all 
Christians  seeking  to  do  a  more  intensive  and  fruitful 
personal  work.  Just  after  receiving  the  manuscript 
from  Howard  Walter  we  learnt  the  news  that  he  had 
been  called  away  to  the  higher,  nobler  tasks  of  the 
world  beyond.  We  are  very  grateful  to  the  Editor 
of  the  Indian  Witness  for  his  kindness  in  permitting 
the  publication. 

H.  A.  P. 


/IDemories  ot 
IHowarD  arnolC)  Malter  * 

CHARGES   D.   THOMPSON. 

"Where  do  you  go  with  a  face  so  bright? 
/  seek  the  Bourne  of  the  Fadeless  Light. 
And  what  if  the  end  be  death  at  last? 
Not  death,  hut  life,  with  the  shadow  past. 
Who  are  you,  Spirit,  with  heart  so  true? 
/  was  once  your  dream,  and  I  might  be — you." 

I  think  I  met  Howard  Walter  for  the  first  time  at 
the  Northfield  Student  Conference  in  1901,  the  sum- 
mer before  we  entered  college.  We  were  in  the  same 
eating-club  part  of  our  Freshman  year.  During  the 
first  two  years  he  roomed  with  Miner  Rogers,  who 
was  head  of  the  Student  Volunteer  band  and  leader 
of  a  mission  study  class  which  we  both  attended,  and 
who  was  afterward  killed  in  the  massacres  at  Adana, 
Turkey,  while  trying  to  put  out  a  fire  on  the  roof  of 
the  girls'  school.  In  junior  year  we  were  messmates 
the  whole  year,  and  members  of  an  honour  course 
in  composition,  and  1  remember  many  a  talk  late  into 
the  night,  and  exchanges  of  confidences.     But  it  was 

*  Reprinted  from  the  Indian  Witness  with  the  kind  per- 
mission of  the  Editor. 


8  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

not  until  senior  year  that  I  really  came  to  know  him. 
We  both  roomed  in  Blair  Hall,  where  I  had  to  pass 
his  room  going  to  and  from  classes.  He  had  a  lovely 
single  room,  conveniently  situated  to  watch  the  crowds 
coming  from  the  station,  and  there  I  learned  from 
his  book-shelves  that  there  were  more  famous  poets 
than  I  had  ever  heard  of  before.  For  some  time  a 
group  of  intimate  friends  met  for  prayer  every  day 
in  his  room.  For  several  months  that  year  he  never 
went  to  bed  without  having  written  a  poem.  He  was 
editor-in-chief  of  the  Nassau  Literary  Magazine,  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  Princeton  Tiger,  and  winner 
of  the  Baird  Oratorical  Contest,  which  was  the 
greatest  literary  honour  in  the  college,  and  for  which 
only  those  who  had  stood  highest  in  English  through- 
out their  college  courses  could  compete.  I  re- 
member especially  our  canoe  rides  up  the  river  and 
through  the  swamps,  and  one  long  walk  through  a 
rocky  glen,  when  he  told  me  that  he  had  no  less 
than  eight  friends  to  whom  he  would  not  be 
afraid  to  tell  anything  in  his  life,  and  I  realized  for 
the  first  time  something  of  his  power  for  friendship. 
Only  that  year,  too,  did  I  learn  of  the  weakness  of 
his  heart,  which  he  never  told  to  any  but  his  best 


so UL  -  SURGERY  9 

friends,  and  of  the  courage  which  is  shown  in  the  Hnes 
I  have  quoted  above  from  his  poem  on  "Optimism" — 
a  courage  by  which  he  faced  death  daily,  and  yet  had 
faith  and  strength  to  accomplish  all  that  he  did,  know- 
ing himself  always  near  *'the  Bourne  of  the  Fadeless 
Light." 

At  the  Northfield  Student  Conference  of  1905, 
just  after  we  graduated,  and  the  last  time  we  were 
ever  all  together,  there  were  seven  of  our  class, 
Princeton,  1905,  who  either  planned  to  go  or  eventu- 
ally did  go  to  the  foreign  field  as  missionaries.  One 
is  in  the  Princeton  work  in  Peking,  one  went  to 
Turkey,  and  two  to  India,  a  fifth  spent  some  time  in 
both  India  and  South  America,  one  was  unable  to  go 
because  of  ill  health,  and  Norman  Thomas,  who  became 
a  missionary  to  foreigners  in  America,  and  has  been 
the  chairman  of  the  committee  on  immigration  of  the 
New  York  Federation  of  Churches.  For  many  years 
this  group  of  men  kept  up  a  round-robin  letter,  and  in 
this  letter  Howard  was  the  leading  spirit.  For  years, 
each  day  of  the  week  was  assigned  for  prayer  for  one 
of  the  group,  and  I  think  none  of  us  had  any  greater 
time  of  inspiration  than  when  these  letters  came 
around. 


lo  SOUL  -  SURGURY 

The  first  year  out  of  college  was  spent  at  Hartford 
Theological  Seminary,  and  the  next  year  he  went  to 
Japan  for  a  year  to  teach  English  in  Waseda  Universi- 
ty, Tokio,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  It  was 
during  this  year  in  Japan  that  he  wrote  "My  Creed," 
which  is  probably  his  best  known  poem.  One  day 
a  line  or  two  occurred  to  him,  on  an  inspiration  from 
his  mother  and  he  sat  down  and  completed  the  whole 
poem  in  some  fifteen  minutes.  It  has  several  times 
been  set  to  music  specially  composed  for  it,  and  has 
appeared  in  several  collections  of  hymns,  and  has  been 
used  extensively  on  gift-cards,  placards,  and  Christmas 
cards.  He  Hved  in  the  most  intimate  contact  with 
the  Japanese  students,  going  with  them  on  one  long 
trip  by  sea  to  the  outlying  islands,  and  on  many 
tramps  in  the  mountains.  It  was  here  that  he  formed 
the  basis  of  the  personal  work  which  was  afterwards 
one  of  the  features  of  his  work. 

Returning  to  Hartford,  he  became  a  leader  in  all 
the  activities  of  the  Theological  Seminary,  and  on 
graduating  and  being  ordained,  in  1909,  he  was  at 
once  made  assistant  pastor  of  the  Aslyum  Hill  Con- 
gregational Church,  which  is  the  largest  church  in 
Hartford.     During   his   pastorate    he   married    Miss 


SOUL- SURGERY  n 

Marguerite  Darlington,  niece  of  Bishop  Darlington. 
His  first  daughter,  Marion,  was  born  in  Hartford, 
Ruth  in  India,  and  his  son  Henry  during  his  furlough 
in  America.  Three  years  later  he  was  unanimously 
asked  to  become  the  pastor  of  this  large  church,  but 
he  decided  to  accept  the  offer  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  to  become  a  special  literary 
secretary  set  apart  for  the  study  of  Muhammadanism, 
as  Mr.  Farquhar  was  already  for  Hinduism.  In  spite 
of  the  knowledge  of  what  it  might  involve,  he  fear- 
lessly decided  for  India,  and,  in  1912,  after  beginning 
the  study  of  Arabic  and  Urdu  in  America,  he  came 
out  to  take  up  the  work  to  which  his  life  was  dedicated 
from  that  time  onward.  A  collection  of  nearly  a 
hundred  of  his  poems  was  published,  under  the  title 
My  Creed  and  Other  Poems,  the  same  year.  He  des- 
cribes them  truly  as  ''songs  of  faith  and  love  and 
friendship." 

After  spending  the  winter  in  the  language  school 
at  Lucknow,  he  was  sent  to  Lahore,  where  he  began 
at  once  at  first  hand  his  studies  into  Muhammadan 
life  and  customs.  He  was  also  given  charge  of  the 
Y.M.C.A.  hostel  for  non-Christian  students.  Realiz- 
ing that  the  problems  of   Indian  students  might  be 


12  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

different  from  those  of  American  or  Japanese  students, 
he  set  out  characteristically  to  find  out  what  was  al- 
ready known  about  personal  work  in  India.  He 
addressed  questionaires  to  a  large  number  of  personal 
workers  in  India  and  compiled  their  answers  in  a 
book  which  was  published  under  the  title  "Handbook 
of  Work  among  Students  Enquirers  in  India."  He  also 
became  secretary  of  the  ''Missionaries  to  Muslims 
League."  On  the  steamer  from  Marseilles  to  Bombay, 
and  during  the  happy  Christmas  and  New  Year's  days 
spent  in  the  Walters'  home,  the  friendship  of  our  col- 
lege days  was  renewed  and  redoubled.  Of  the  ways 
in  which  he  helped  me  personally  to  become  a  truer 
and  better  man,  I  cannot  speak  here.  Above  all  he 
helped  me  to  realize  the  indwelling  presence  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ.  The  hours  spent  about  his  fireplace 
were  surely  the  happiest  of  those  three  years  for  me. 

In  1916  he  was  to  have  gone  to  Egypt  for  two 
years  special  study,  had  not  the  war  prevented.  In- 
stead, he  returned  to  America  for  a  year,  pursuing 
further  language  studies  and  such  researches  concern- 
ing Muhammadanism  as  were  possible  in  America.  He 
attended  a  re-union  of  the  class  of  1905,  at  Princeton, 
and  a  number  of  his  old  friends,  who  usually  do  not 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  13 

favour  these  functions,  attended  because  they  knew  he 
was  to  be  there.  He  had  been  one  of  the  leading 
personal  workers  in  the  Eddy-Buchman  Campaign  in 
Lahore,  and  while  in  America  he  frequently  helped 
Mr.  Buchman  in  this  work. 

On  his  return  to  India  in  1917,  he  spent  three 
months  in  China,  doing  personal  work  among  the 
students  of  China  in  company  with  Mr.  Buchman. 
A  part  of  his  last  year  in  India  was  spent  in  Lucknow 
collecting  materials  for  two  books,  one  on  Muham- 
madan  sects,  the  other  on  Muhammadan  mystics.  The 
last  time  I  saw  him  was  when  he  came  to  Allahabad 
for  a  conference  with  Dr.  Griswold  and  Mr.  Farquhar, 
and  we  both  had  the  privilege  of  being  guided  about 
the  "Kumbh  Mela"  at  Allahabad  by  Mr.  Farquhar. 
Although  his  work  seemed  barely  begun, he  had  already 
acquired  a  position  of  authority  which,  in  his  own 
field,  would  soon  have  equalled  that  of  his  older  co- 
labourer  in  the  field  of  Hinduism. 

Every  great  change  in  his  life  he  met  in  the  spirit 
of  the  lines  of  his  ode  "To  Princeton— 1905" : 

"Swift  comes  the  sunrise  of  a  larger  day, 

Whose  tasks  are  near,  are  near; 
Joined  in  the  bonds  of  fellowship  for  aye, 

Glad  scorn  we'll  fling  to  fear." 


14  SOU L  -  SURGERY 

We  may  be  sure  he  met  the  last  great  change  in 
the  same  spirit.  He  always  looked  forward  to  the 
sunrise  of  that  larger  day  and  the  greater,  nobler  tasks 
which  he  believed  awaited  him  in  the  joyous  life  of 
that  dawn. 

I  cannot  close  without  repeating  his  creed — the 
creed  which  all  who  knew  him  saw  so  bravely  and  so 
wondrously  lived  out  in  all  his  ways. 


BY    HOWARD    ARNOI^D    WALTER. 

'I  would  be  true,  for  there  are  those  who  trust  me 
I  would  be  pure,  for  there  are  those  who  care; 

I  would  be  strong,  for  there  is  much  to  suffer; 
I  would  be  brave,  for  there  is  much  to  dare; 

I  would  be  friend  of  all — the  foe — the  friendless ; 

I  would  be  giving  and  forget  the  gift ; 
I  would  be  humble,  for  I  know  my  weakness ; 

I  would  look  up  and  laugh — and  love — and  lift." 


FOREWORD 

This  pamphlet  comprises  a  series  of  articles  origin- 
ally written  for  The  Indian  Witness,  at  the  editor's 
request.  For  much  of  the  general  background  of 
ideas  I  am  indebteded  to  Professor  Henry  Wright,  of 
Yale  Divinity  School,  and  Mr.  Frank  N.  D.  Buchman, 
of  Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  who  acknowledge 
their  own  vast  debt  to  the  pioneer  in  this  field,  Henry 
Drummond.  Those  who  are  aware  of  the  very  wide 
and  rich  experience  of  Dr.  Wright  and  Mr.  Buchman 
as  successful  personal  evangelists,  are  waiting  with 
eagerness  for  the  volume  on  this  theme  upon  which 
they  are  collaborating.  Pending  its  appearance,  this 
little  study  of  certain  phases  of  a  subject  on  which, 
despite  its  importance,  there  is  so  little  recent  liter- 
ature, may  prove  helpful  to  some. 

H.  A.  W. 


I. 


Zbc  Umportance 

of 

Ipersonal  BvangeUsm 


XTbe  Umportance  ot 
personal  Branaelism 

^■■rhe  American  philosopher-humorist,  *'Mr.  Dooley," 
LW  once  compared  Christian  science  to  the  guinea- 
pig  which,  he  said,  has  not  come  from  Guinea 
and  is  not  a  pig.  He  failed  to  see  where  Christian 
science  is  essentially  either  Christian  or  scientific. 
Similarly  what  generally  passes  for  "personal  work" 
is  a  double  misnomer,  in  that  it  does  not  really  take 
account  of  the  personal  equation,  and  it  is  not  work. 
Along  with  Bible  study  and  prayer  we  include  personal 
work  as  one  of  the  three  primary  essentials  of  the 
Christian  life,  but  in  our  hearts  do  we  not  often  re- 
joice that  those  to  whom  we  recommend  these 
practices  do  not  know  how  shadowy  and  sporadic  is 
their  presence  in  our  own  lives  ? 

Personal  work!  Bible  study!  The  kind  of 
''work"  in  which  we  engage  in  connection  with  the 
former  phase  of  our  activities  would  no  more  be 
accepted  as  work  in  a  twentieth  century  business  office 
than  would  the  kind  of  "study"  which  we  pursue 
in  relation  to  the  Scriptures,  be  accepted  as  study  in 
any  true  school  or  college.     Is  personal  work,  then, 


20  SOUL  -  SURGURY 

not  equal  in  importance  to  our  regular  activities,  that 
we  judge  it  by  lower  standards,  and  slight  it  so  con- 
tinually ?  Our  chief  witness  both  to  the  difficulty  and 
the  rarity  of  this  form  of  service  shall  be  that  one, 
the  influence  of  whose  mind  and  spirit  upon  the 
student  world  of  his  generation  in  Great  Britain  and 
America  was  unrivalled.  In  his  essay  on  ''Spiritual 
Diagnosis,"  which  marked  the  beginning  of  the  mod- 
ern movement  of  scientific  personal  evangelism,  if 
not  of  the  psychology  of  religion  as  well,  Henry 
Drummond  wrote  in  1873 :  "The  true  worker's  world 
is  the  unit.  Recognise  the  personal  glory  and  dignity 
of  the  unit  as  an  agent.  Work  with  units,  but,  above 
all,  work  at  units.  But  the  capacity  of  acting  upon 
individuals  is  now  almost  a  lost  art.  It  is  hard  to 
learn  again.  We  have  spoilt  ourselves  by  thinking 
to  draw  thousands  by  public  work — by  what  people 
call  'pulpit  eloquence',  by  platform  speeches,  and  by 
convocations  and  councils.  Christian  conferences,  and 
by  books  of  many  editions.  We  have  been  painting 
Madonnas  and  Bcce  Homos  and  choirs  of  angels,  like 
Raphael,  and  it  is  hard  to  condescend  to  the  beggar 
boy  of  Murillo.  Yet  we  must  begin  again  and  begin 
far  down.     Christianity  began  with  one.     We  have 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  21 

forgotten  the  simple  way  of  the  founder  of  the  great- 
est influence  the  world  has  even  seen — how  He  ran 
away  from  cities,  how  He  shirked  mobs,  how  He 
lagged  behind  the  rest  at  Samaria  to  have  a  quiet 
talk  with  one  woman  at  a  well,  how  He  stole  away 
from  crowds  and  entered  into  the  house  of  one  humble 
Syro-Phoenician  woman,  'and  would  have  no  man 
know  it'.  In  small  groups  of  two's  and  three's,  He 
collected  the  early  church  around  Him.  One  by  one 
the  disciples  were  called — and  there  were  only  twelve 
in  all."* 

Can  we  say  that  the  situation  throughout  the 
Christian  Church  in  general  has  altered  materially 
since  Drummond  gave  it  as  his  deliberate  judgment, 
forty-five  years  ago,  that  the  capacity  of  acting  upon 
individuals  is  now  almost  a  lost  art? 

With  regard  to  the  importance  of  this  form  of 
Christian  service,  which  was  the  method  followed 
primarily  by  our  Lord  and  the  early  Christian  Church, 
let  us  listen  to  the  most  authoritative  voice  in  the 
student  world  of  the  generation  succeeding  Drummond, 
Dr.  John  R.  Mott.     In    his   most    recent   book.    The 

*  Drummond :    The    New    Evangelism    and    Other   Essays, 
p.  258.    London. 


22  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

Present  World  Situation,  in  the  chapter  entitled, 
"Where  to  Lay  the  Chief  Emphasis,"  Dr.  Mott  writes : 
"Some  missionary  methods  are  more  highly  produc- 
tive than  others.  These  may  be  characterized  as  the 
most  vital  processes,  and  in  all  cases  where  other 
methods  are  employed,  these  vital  processes  should  be 
employed  with  them  or  related  to  them.  The  most 
important  and  productive  method  of  all  is  that  of  re- 
lating men  one  by  one  through  reasonable  and  vital 
faith  to  Jesus  Christ.  By  'reasonable  faith'  is  meant 
a  faith  for  which  men  can  give  reasons  which  will 
stand.  By  'vital  faith'  is  meant  a  faith  which  actually 
transforms  life.  This  individual  work  for  individuals 
was  the  method  most  constantly  employed  by  Christ 
Himself,  and  has  ever  been  given  a  large  place  in 
the  activities  of  the  most  helpful  spiritual  workers. 
It  is  the  crowning  work,  the  most  highly  multiplying 
work,  the  most  enduring  work.  The  most  influential 
converts  in  India  were  won  by  this  personal  siege 
work.  The  largest  and  most  satisfactory  results  in 
conversions,  both  in  colleges  and  hospitals,  have  come 
from  the  use  of  the  same  method."* 

♦'  Mott :  The  Present  World  Situation,  pp.  215-216.    Student 
Volunteer  Movement,  N.  Y. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  23 

The  man  who  convinced  Dr.  Mott  of  the  primary 
importance  of  personal  work  was  the  late  Henry  Clay 
Trumbull,  whose  classic  volume,  Individual  Work 
for  Individuals,  sums  up  the  experience  of  forty  years 
of  successful  personal  evangelism. t  In  that  book, 
after  summarizing  his  varied  activities  as  chaplain, 
Sunday  school  missionary,  editor  and  author,  he  gives 
it  as  his  deliberate  judgment:  ''Looking  back  on  all 
my  work,  in  all  these  years,  I  can  see  more  direct 
results  of  good  through  my  individual  efforts  with 
individuals,  than  I  can  know  of  through  all  my  spoken 
words  to  thousands  upon  thousands  of  persons  in 
religious  assemblies,  or  all  my  written  words  in  the 
pages  of  periodicals  or  of  books. "J  In  another  place 
Dr.  Trumbull  quotes  Dr.  Nevius,  a  missionary  leader 
in  China,  indirectly,  to  this  effect:  ''He  said  he 
wanted  no  great  preachers  in  his  field.  That  was  not 
the  sort  of  missionaries  who  were  needed  in  China. 
If  he  could  find  a  man  who  could  talk  familiarly, 
face  to  face  with  another  man  wherever  he  met  him, 
he  had  missionary  work  for  that  kind  of  a  man  in 
China."§ 

t  Cf.  Mott:  Individual  Work  for  Individuals  (pamphlet), 
p.  13  Association  Press,  New  York. 

$  Quoted  in  C.  G.  Trumbull:  Taking  Men  Alive,  p.  41. 
Association  Press,  New  York. 

§  Ibid.,  p.  33. 


24  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

Why  Dr.  Nevius  spoke  so  emphatically  we  begin 
to  realize  when  we  survey  the  history  of  the  modern 
missionary  advance  of  the  church,  and  note  how  every 
great  forward  movement  has  been  due  to  an  awaken- 
ing in  some  quarter  to  the  fundamental  importance 
of  work  with  individuals. 

It  was  my  privilege  to  be  travelling  through  Korea 
in  the  later  months  of  the  great  revival  of  1906-1907, 
a  revival  which  in  a  sense  is  not  yet  ended,  and  I 
remember  how  the  Korean  converts  were  constrained 
to  bear  personal  witness  continually  to  what  Christ 
had  done  for  them — were  not,  indeed,  admitted  to  full 
fellowship  in  the  church  until  they  had  demonstrated 
by  actual  souls  they  had  won  the  genuineness  of  their 
professions  of  faith.  Such  a  witnessing  church  be- 
comes of  necessity  a  growing  and  a  power-filled 
church.  Rev.  H.  A.  Popley,  who  has  been  so  inti- 
mately concerned  from  the  beginning  in  the  great 
evangelistic  forward  movement  of  the  South  India 
United  Church,  initiated  in  1915,  testifies  to  the  fact 
that  in  all  the  preparation  for,  and  progress  of,  that 
truly  remarkable  and  most  heartening  manifestation  of 
the  power  of  God,  working  in  co-operation  with  the 
zeal  of  man,  personal  evangelism  has  held  the  central 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  25 

place.  The  same  emphasis  on  personal  work  has  char- 
acterized the  week  of  simultaneous  evangelism,  on  the 
part  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  India,  in  1917  and 
1918.  We  are  beginning  to  realize  how  true  were 
Dr.  Mott's  words,  written  sixteen  years  ago:  "If 
the  Christians  of  India  would  adopt  this  method,  it 
would  be  a  comparatively  easy  task  to  preach  the 
unsearchable  riches  of  Jesus  Christ  throughout  the 
entire  country  within  a  generation."*  All  this  is 
equally  true  of  every  successful  evangelistic  effort  in 
the  West.  Personal  work  was  the  cornerstone  of  the 
mammoth  Evangelistic  campaign  conducted  by  Rev. 
William  A.  Sunday  in  New  York  City  in  1917, 
through  which  no  less  than  200,000  men  and  women 
confessed  to  receiving  a  spiritual  quickening  in  Christ 
during  the  month  that  Dr.  Sunday  was  preaching  in 
the  tabernacle,  and  Mr.  Frank  Buchman  was  conduct- 
ing personal  workers'  groups  in  all  parts  of  the  city. 
Finally,  to  come  down  to  the  present  moment,  real 
personal  work  is  the  keynote  of  the  nation-wide  move- 
ment of  intensive  evangelism,  which  is  in  progress 
in  China,  under  the  inspiring  leadership  of  Messrs. 
Eddy,  Buchman  and  Day,  together  with  many  Chinese 

*  Mott :    Individual  Work  for  Individuals,  p.  1. 


26  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

Christian  workers  and  missionaries.  In  connection 
with  this  movement,  Rev.  George  Davis,  in  charge  of 
the  evangelistic  work  among  the  Methodists  of  Peking, 
tells  of  how  in  one  week  over  8,000  people  attended 
a  series  of  special  meetings  and  4,488  signed  cards 
saying  that  they  wished  to  become  Christians,  of  whom 
2888  united  with  the  Church  on  a  single  Sunday.  He 
adds  that  they  were  all  won  by  personal  work,  in 
which  400  Chinese  were  engaged.  Mr.  Robert  R. 
Gailey,  one  of  the  oldest  Y.M.C.A.  secretaries  in 
China,  writes  of  Mr.  Eddy's  latest  visit  to  China: 
"This  recent  campaign  has  been  different  from  others. 
It  was  not  a  one-man  campaign.  It  was  not  even  a 
one-team  campaign.  A  hew  spirit,  a  new  idea,  a  new 
inspiration  has  been  sweeping  over  the  whole  of  Asia 
in  the  last  few  months.  Mr.  Eddy's  campaign  was 
only  a  part  of  this  movement.  It  can  be  characterized 
more  nearly  by  the  phrase  'personal  evangelism'  than 
any  other,  though  of  course  no  few  words  can  ade- 
quately express  the  depth  of  the  full  meaning  of  the 
movement.  The  old-time  hit-or-miss  revival  is  gone. 
Each  meeting  was  'covered'.  Every  non-Christian 
who  attended  was  personally  invited  by  a  Christian, 
who  accompanied  him,   sat   with   him   and   followed 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  27 

him  up.  Men  were  not  swept  off  their  feet  by  the  sud- 
den force  of  arguments  or  emotions.  Each  man  had 
been  prepared  for  several  months:  otherwise  he  was 
not  eHgible  to  obtain  a  ticket.  There  was  no  mass 
action;  everything  was  sane,  normal  and  on  an  indi- 
vidual basis." 

From  this  and  other  signs  it  is  becoming  evident 
to  many  that  the  next  great  advance  of  the  Christian 
Church — already  indeed  under  way — is  to  lie  along  the 
line  of  world-wide  lay  mobilization  for  universal  serv- 
ice, in  the  sphere  of  personal  evangelism,  of  all  the 
forces  of  the  Christian  Church,  so  that  to  the  next  gen- 
eration, at  least,  Drummond's  indictment  may  not 
apply. 

Some  may  feel  that  we  are  over-emphasizing  the 
importance  of  personal  work  in  comparison  with  pray- 
er and  Bible  study,  but  the  experience  of  many  will 
bear  out  the  statement  that  when  one  is  actually  en- 
gaged in  the  work  of  winning  souls,  he  is  driven 
continually  to  God  in  prayer  and  the  study  of  His 
revealed  Word.  On  the  other  hand,  one  main  reason 
why  there  is  such  laxity  in  prayer  and  Bible  study 
among  Christian  people  is,  that  those  practices  are 
considered  to  be  ends  in  themselves  instead  of  pre- 


28  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

eminently  the  means  of  daily  equipment  and  guidance 
for  effective  personal  evangelism. 

With  regard  to  the  comparative  importance  of 
personal  and  public  evangelism,  let  us  listen  again  to 
Drummond,  who  has  known  few  peers  in  either  field, 
"The  past  has  indeed  no  masses.  Men,  not  masses, 
have  done  all  that  is  great  in  history,  in  science,  and 
in  religion.  The  New  Testament  itself  is  but  a  brief 
biography ;  and  many  pages  of  the  Old  are  marked  by 
the  lives  of  men.  Yet  it  is  just  this  truth  which  we 
require  to  be  taught  again  today,  to  be  content  with 
aiming  at  units.  Every  atom  in  the  universe  can  act 
on  every  other  atom,  but  only  through  the  atom  next 
it.  And  if  a  man  woiild  act  upon  every  other  man, 
he  can  do  so  best  by  acting,  one  at  a  time,  upon  those 
beside  him"."^'  And  Drummond  lived  what  he  preached. 
His  biographer,  George  Adam  Smith,  says  that  in  this 
paper  on  ''Spiritual  Diagnosis,"  written  at  the  age  of 
twenty-three  on  the  eve  of  his  participation  in  the 
great  Moody  and  Sankey  Mission  of  1874:  "Drum- 
mond enumerated  the  principles  and  laid  down  the 
methods  upon  which,  beginning  from  this  very  month 
onwards,  he  conducted  all  his  wonderful  ministry  to 
*  The  New  Evangelism,  pp.  258-259. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  29 

men."t  Dr.  Trumbull  quotes  America's  most  eloquent 
preacher  of  civil  war  days,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  as 
saying  in  his  hearing:  *'The  longer  I  live,  the  more 
confidence  I  have  in  the  sermons  preached  when  one 
man  is  the  minister  and  one  man  is  the  congregation; 
when  there's  no  question  who  is  meant  when  the 
preacher  says,  ''Thou  art  the  man. "J  How  many  a 
public  evangelistic  campaign,  conducted  by  a  dis- 
tinguished speaker,  has  accomplished  little  because  it 
was  not  undergirded  by  a  continuous  campaign  of  per- 
sonal evangelism  in  which  large  numbers  of  Christian 
workers  participated.  In  like  manner  very  many  iso- 
lated evangelistic  sermons  and  addresses  fail  of  per- 
manent results,  because  not  driven  home  and  riveted 
in  individual  lives  by  carefully  conducted  personal  in- 
terviews. So  much  for  the  widespread  neglect  and 
the  fundamental  importance  of  personal  work. 

We  will  not  here  canvass  in  detail  the  reasons 
why  this  form  of  Christian  service  is  so  rare  among 
members  of  the  Christian  Church.  Dr.  Wright  told 
his  personal  workers'  class  in  Yale  University  last  year 
that  most  men  are  not  doing  personal  work  because 

t  Smith :    Life   of  Henry  Drummond,  p.   53.     Hodder  & 
Stoughton,  London. 
%  C.  G.  Trumbull :    Taking  Men  Alive,  p.  33. 


30  SOUL  '  SURGERY 

of  spiritual  laziness,  cowardice  or  impotence.  They 
do  not  wish  to  do  it  or  they  are  afraid  to  do  it,  or  they 
are  not  able  to  do  it,  because  sin  of  some  kind  has 
paralyzed  their  energies.  Ober  and  Mott,  in  their 
pamphlet  on  Personal  Work,  first  published  in  1892, 
four  years  after  Mott  graduated  from  Cornell  Uni- 
versity, gave  the  following  hindrances  to  personal 
work:  Natural  diffidence,  self-conceit,  love  of  ease, 
consciousness  of  an  inconsistent  life,  an  inconsistent 
life  though  unrecognized  by  the  man  himself,  false 
courtesy,  lack  of  experience,  ignorance  of  the  Bible, 
failure  to  recognize  opportunities,  Satan's  active  inter- 
ference."''' This  list  probably  includes  the  most 
important  hindrances,  alt  of  which  point  back  to  the 
lack  of  vital  experience  of  the  living  Christ,  out  of 
which  must  flow  the  zeal,  courage,  tact  and  consistent 
Christian  living  which  make  personal  work  possible 
and  fruitful.  The  terms  ''Christian"  and  "Personal 
Worker"  ought  to  be  interchangeable.  A  professed 
Christian  who  is  not  busy  to  some  extent  in  the  work 
of  witness-bearing  to  individuals,  can  be  no  true 
follower  of  Christ,  who  declared  "My  Father  worketh 
even  until  now,  and  I  work"  (John  5:17),  who  bade 

*  C.  K.  Ober  and  J.  R.  Mott :  Personal  Works,  How  Organ- 
ized and  Accomplished,  p.  32.    Association  Press,  New  York. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  31 

us  "Go  and  make  disciples  of  all  nations"  (Matt. 
28:  19,  which  includes  the  people  who  live  closest 
to  us  as  well  as  those  in  distant  lands.  The  one  to 
whom  the  Gospel  is  genuine  ''good  news"  inevitably 
passes  it  on  to  others,  and  it  is  through  such  personal 
witnessing  primarily  that  the  Christian  religion  (and 
for  that  matter  the  Buddhist  and  Muhammadan  re- 
ligions also)  spreads  abroad  in  the  world.  In  this 
paper  we  are  assuming  that  the  desire  and  the 
courage  and  the  capacity  are  present,  at  least  poten- 
tially, and  that  it  is  a  question  of  right  and  wrong 
methods  of  personal  work — yes,  let  us  dare  to  say, 
of  a  scientific  and  an  unscientific  way  of  carrying  on 
this  all-important  work  for  the  Master. 

Church  members  are  coming  to  realise  the  mean- 
ing for  them  of  Jesus'  words:  "The  sons  of  this 
world  are  for  their  own  generation  wiser  than  the  sons 
of  light,"  (Luke  16:  8);  and  we  are  witnessing  a 
happy  application  of  scientific  efficiency — the  shibbo- 
leth of  the  modern  business  world — to  methods  of 
Church  management  and  missionary  organization; 
but  as  yet  we  have  been  lagging  behind  in  making  the 
kindred  idea  of  conservation  an  integral  part  of  our 
Christian  programme.     Amid  all  this  war-time  talk 


32  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

of  the  conservation  of  daylight,  of  shipping  facihties, 
of  man-power  for  fighting  purposes,  etc.,  we  of 
Christ's  army  need  to  remember  our  great  task  of  the 
conservation  of  personality  for  the  highest  ends,  as  we 
seek  to  prevent  the  fearful  human  wastage  taking  place 
all  about  us  through  the  ravages  of  sin.  This  task 
is  not  just  the  comparatively  simple  one  of  passing  on 
a  word  of  testimony  that  "J^^^s  saves.'*  We  are  the 
human  engineers  by  whom  what  is  wrong  with  these 
intricate  spiritual  machines  around  us  should  be  cor- 
rected. Viewed  in  this  light  we  see  at  once  how  in- 
evitably and  necessarily  personal — to  a  certain  extent 
"technical" — our  work  must  be. 

But  perhaps  even  a  more  helpful  figure  is  the  one 
which  Jesus  used  when  He  said  of  Himself:  "They 
that  are  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are 
sick"  (Matt.  9:  12).  He  was  speaking  at  the  moment 
to  the  Pharisees,  whose  coat  of  self-esteem  was  so 
thick  that  they  doubtless  missed  the  sarcasm  which 
sought  to  tell  them  that  they,  most  of  all,  needed 
healing.  But  a  physician  is  powerless  to  help  a  man 
who,  however  ailing  he  may  be,  recognizes  in  himself 
no  defect,  so  that  Jesus'  work  of  healing — both  spiri- 
tual and  physical — was  chiefly  confined  to  the  class 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  33 

that  was  recognized,  by  themselves  and  others,  as 
"sinners" — sin-sick.  Jesus'  language  here  is  in  line 
with  the  whole  thought  of  the  Bible  regarding  sin 
and  salvation.  The  English  words  "heal,"  "whole" 
and  "holy"  come  from  the  same  root,  and  in  the 
translations  of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  originals  they 
are  to  some  extent  used  interchangeably.  Modern 
psychology  also  has  adapted  this  classification,  as  wit- 
ness the  titles  of  two  of  the  chapters  in  William  James' 
The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experiences ;'^  "The  Re- 
ligion of  Healthy-mindedness"  and  "The  Sick  Soul." 

*  William  James*   The   Varieties  of  Religious  Experience. 
Longmans  Green  &  Co.,  N.  Y. 


II. 

flDetbob 

ot 

Iperaonal  lEvanoelism 


/iDetbob  ot 
personal  Bvanaeltsm 

^/f  then  we  accept  this  definition  of  personal  work 
^  as  the  "Cure  of  Souls"  (to  quote  the  title  of  "Ian 
Marclaren's"  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching),  we  do 
not  need  to  argue  for  a  scientific  as  against  a  haphazard 
method  of  procedure.  A  prominent  member  of  the 
Chinese  Church,  after  hearing  Mr.  Buchman  lecture 
on  this  subject,  in  1917,  said:  "I  know  what  you 
mean,  you  don't  believe  in  the  chemist's  shop  method 
of  personal  work."  That  analogy  will  describe  much 
that  passes  under  the  name  of  personal  work,  i.e., 
giving  perfunctorily  our  spiritual  specific,  our  cure-all, 
to  ailing  souls  around  us,  and  perhaps  wondering  why 
the  Gospel  does  not  prove  more  efficacious.  The  true 
physician  only  after  careful  scientific  diagnosis  ad- 
ministers a  remedy,  and  then  he  follows  the  case 
through  with  conscientious  care.  Have  we  (and  I 
mean  now  not  simply  clergymen,  whose  work  is 
preaching,  but  all  of  us  whose  work  is  winning  men 
and  women  to  their  highest  selves  in  Christ)  looked 
at  our  business  of  curing  souls  in  this  conscientious 


SOUL  -  SURGERY 


37 


way?  I  once  heard  Dean  Jacobus,  of  Hartford  Sem- 
inary, in  America,  say  that  a  man  ought  to  prepare 
as  carefully  for  a  vital  interview  with  one  man  as  for 
a  sermon  to  one  hundred.  In  view  of  this  the  semi- 
nary with  which  he  is  connected  now  has  a  ''spiritual 
clinic,"  compulsory  for  all  students,  conducted  by  Dr. 
John  Douglas  Adam,  one  of  Scotland's  many  valued 
gifts  to  the  religious  life  of  America,  in  which  personal 
evangelism  is  studied,  as  law  is  studied,  by  the  case 
method,  instead  of  through  vague  generalization  and 
exhortations. 

In  the  kindred  sphere  of  philanthropy  there  is  a 
new  technique  which  has  transformed  it  into  a  science 
through  emphasizing  this  same  individualized  study, 
as  illustrated  by  a  recent  publication  from  the  pen  of 
Mrs.  Richmond,  director  of  the  organization  depart- 
ment of  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation.  It,  too,  has 
adopted  the  clinical  method  based  on  "social  diagno- 
sis," of  which  we  read  that  "In  social  diagnosis  there 
is  the  attempt  to  arrive  at  as  exact  a  definition  as  pos- 
sible of  the  social  situation  and  personality  of  a  given 
client."* 

*  Article  in  Current  Literature  for  December,  1917,  pp. 
394,  395,  based  on  Social  Diagnosis,  by  Mary  E.  Richmond. 
Russell  Sage  Foundation,  New  York. 


38  SOUl  -  SURGERY 

It  was  for  the  use  of  just  this  clinical  principle  in 
individual  work  that  Drummond  pleaded  in  his  essay 
on  "Spiritual  Diagnosis,"  and  it  was  this  method  that 
he,  himself,  followed  in  all  his  unparalleled  work  for 
individuals  to  the  end  of  his  life.  In  a  letter  to  a 
friend  in  1882,  he  wrote:  "I  must  say  I  believe  in 
personal  dealing  more  and  more  every  day,  and  in  the 
inadequacy  of  mere  preaching.  The  inquiry  room  this 
time,  as  before,  brings  its  terrible  revelation  of  the 
vast  multitude  of  un regenerate  church  members.  I 
have  dealt  with  several  men  of  position  who  knew  the 
letter  of  Scripture  as  they  knew  their  own  names,  but 
who  had  no  more  idea  of  Free  Grace  and  a  Personal 
Christ  than  a  Hottentot,"* 

To  further  illustrate  the  use  of  this  method  of 
approach,  let  us  take  an  illustration  from  the  field 
most  familiar  to  us  in  India ;  in  our  missionary  work 
today  there  is  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  need  of 
studying  scientifically  the  best  way  of  reaching  the 
people  of  these  other  religions,  in  the  light  of  their 
pre-conceptions  and  past  strivings  and  attainments 
and  failures  in  the  realm  of  the  religious  life.  The 
detailed  report  of  the  Edinburgh  Missionary  Confer- 

*  Smith :  Life  of  Drummond,  pp.  145. 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  39 

ence  of  1910  showed  the  vast  diversities  in  the  mis- 
sionaries' task,  and  the  need  of  the  most  careful 
preparation  before  the  work  is  undertaken.  Further 
results  of  that  epoch-making  conference  are  appearing 
in  the  careful  findings  of  boards  of  missionary  prepar- 
ation in  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  and  in 
the  establishment,  present  or  prospective,  of  schools 
of  missionary  preparation,  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlan- 
tic, which  are  setting  their  standards  as  high  as  the 
professional  schools  in  other  departments  of  the 
world's  work.  The  "chemist  shop"  method  is  not 
considered  adequate  to  the  missionary  propaganda  of 
the  twentieth  century.  Can  we  continue  to  use  it  in 
our  approach  to  the  individual,  where  each  case  is  so 
different,  so  delicate,  so  difficult? 

At  this  point  we  need  to  safeguard  our  use  of  the 
word  "method"  in  its  application  to  personal  evangel- 
ism just  because  every  case  is  different,  has  its 
individual  features,  and  must  be  dealt  with  by  a 
method  of  its  own,  a  method  which  in  each  case  will 
emerge  not  so  much  out  of  the  Christian  worker's 
past  experience  as  out  of  his  immediate  communion 
with  Christ,  the  Master  Physician,  who  alone  fully 
knows  each  individual  human  heart.  Vitally  important. 


4d  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

then,  for  the  spiritual  physician  is  the  develop- 
ment of  what  the  mystics  of  all  religions  know  as 
spiritual  apprehension — the  "wisdom  that  cometh 
down  from  above"  (James  3:  15).  Drummond  quotes 
an  old  French  sage  (La  Bruyere)  as  saying:  "After 
a  spirit  of  discernment,  the  next  rarest  things  in  the 
world  are  diamonds  and  pearls,"  and  he  also  quotes 
a  certain  principal  of  St.  Andrew's  University  to  this 
effect:  "There  is  a  faculty  of  spiritual  apprehension, 
very  different  from  the  faculties  which  are  trained 
in  schools  and  colleges,  which  must  be  educated  and 
fed  not  less  but  more  carefully  than  our  lower  facul- 
ties, else  it  will  be  starved  and  die."*  This  spiritual 
apprehension  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  human  nature.  I 
once  heard  Dr.  R.  F.  Horton,  of  London,  speak  on 
the  subject  of  prayer  as  a  medium  of  understanding 
the  inner  meaning  of  current  events.  If,  as  some  one 
has  said,  "History  is  His  story,"  we  can  only  rightly 
understand  history  in  the  past  or  in  the  present  as 
we  find  our  way,  through  spiritual  apprehension,  into 
the  mind  of  the  Lord  whose  purposes  are  being  worked 
out  in  the  afifairs  of  men.  And,  similarly,  we  cannot 
*  The  New  Bvangelism,  p.  263. 


SOUL-SURGERY  41 

understand  the  people  around  us  save  as  it  becomes 
possible  for  us  to  view  them  through  the  eyes  of  Jesus. 
He  was  the  Great  Physician  because  He  perfectly 
"knew  what  was  in  man"  (John  2:  25),  and  that 
knowledge  came  primarily  through  His  uninterrupted 
communion  with  the  Father.  It  is  an  indubitable  fact 
that  the  deeper  and  richer  our  prayer  life  becomes, 
the  less  are  we  misled  by  appearances  and  professions, 
and  the  clearer  becomes  our  insight  into  the  hidden 
soul  of  the  man  before  us.  Moreover,  this  relation 
of  practiced  prayer  to  personal  work  is  more  imme- 
diately useful  when  we  are  laying  spiritual  siege  to  a 
particular  soul. 

In  the  first  place,  through  early  morning  prayer 
our  own  spirits  are  brought  into  tune  with  the  infinite, 
and  made  spiritually  sensitive  and  strong  and  resource- 
ful, to  meet  all  the  unknown  opportunities  that  await 
us  of  influencing  individual  souls  in  whom  we  are 
interested  in  the  hours  of  the  day  to  come.  Our  sense 
of  perspective  is  corrected  afresh,  so  that  we  are  likely 
to  view  things  in  right  proportions,  looking  at  certain 
seeming  interruptions  that  may  come  as  god-sent  op- 
portunities for  service,  and  refusing  to  allow  the  most 
important  work  of  all  to  be  crowded  into  a  corner 


42  SiOUl  -  SURGBRY 

or  out  of  the  day  altogether.  We  can  all  plead  the 
excuse  of  business,  but  many  of  the  busiest  men  are 
the  greatest  soul-winners;  they  have  learned  to  "put 
first  things  first"  at  all  costs.  We  have  time  usually 
to  do  the  things  we  really  wish  to  do.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  if  we  refuse  to  let  the  early  morning  prayer  be 
crowded  out  of  our  lives,  as  it  almost  certainly  will 
be  if  we  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  the  very 
discipline  involved  in  our  making  time  for  that  pristine 
spiritual  exercise  is  likely  to  have  its  influence  in 
leading  us  also  to  find  time  for  the  no  less  important 
work  of  soul-winning,  to  which  the  prayer  time  is  so 
essential  by  way  of  preparation.  Some  years  ago  I 
had  a  small  part  in  a  series  of  evangelistic  meetings 
in  a  large  middle  western  university  in  the  United 
States.  The  chief  burden  of  the  meetings  rested  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  general  secretary  of  the  University 
Christian  Association,  a  man  of  unusual  spiritual 
force.  The  days  were  so  crowded  with  activity  that 
it  seemed  as  though  surely  this  was  the  time  when  the 
early  morning  prayer  might  have  been  intermitted  or 
at  least  shortened.  In  conversation  with  the  secre- 
tary's wife,  I  discovered  that  instead  of  shortening  his 
period  of  prayer,  he  had  lengthened  it  during  that 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  43 

week  to  two  full  hours,  rising,  like  his  Master,  "a 
great  while  before  day.''  I  asked  him  later  how  he 
could  do  it,  and  he  replied  that  he  was  simply  driven 
to  it  by  the  burden  he  was  carrying,  the  necessity  of 
being  at  his  best  intellectually  for  the  perplexing  prob- 
lems to  be  solved,  and  at  his  best  spiritually  as  he 
came  face  to  face  and  heart  to  heart  with  men  all 
through  the  day  in  individual  interviews.  Martin 
Luther  once  said,  that  when  any  day  promised  to  lay 
upon  him  a  special  burden  of  work  or  responsibility, 
he  found  it  necessary  to  rise  an  hour  earlier  than  usual 
for  prayer  on  that  day.  When  we  read  in  the  lives 
of  great  winners  of  men  like  John  Wesley,  Henry 
Martyn,  Hudson  Taylor,  Keith  Falconer,  Forbes 
Robinson,  William  Booth  and  Philips  Brooks,  the 
place  given  to  believing,  persistent,  sacrificial  prayer, 
we  cannot  remain  in  doubt  of  the  cause  of  our  own 
comparative  lack  of  spiritual  apprehension  and  power 
in  winning  individuals  to  Christ. 

In  the  second  place,  through  the  early  morning 
time  of  prayer  we  learn  each  day's  programme  of 
procedure,  as  God  who,  we  must  believe,  never  acts 
or  would  have  us  act  in  a  haphazard  manner,  transfers 
to  our  minds  such  part  of  His  perfect  plan  as  we  need 


44  SOUI.  -  SURGE.RY 

to  know.  From  Him  alone  can  we  learn  to  whom 
He  would  have  us  speak  some  timely  word  of  a  per- 
sonal nature  for  which  some  soul  is  ready  and  which 
can  come  effectively  only  from  ourselves.  At  that 
hour  there  come  to  us  the  mysterious  "leadings"  of 
God's  spirit  which,  when  tested  and  proved  and  fol- 
lowed, bring  to  pass  moral  miracles  in  individual  lives. 
Here  is  where  so  much  of  our  personal  work  is  lack- 
ing: instead  of  having  been  "begun,  continued  and 
ended"  in  God,  initiated  by  His  Spirit's  dictation  and 
mirroring  God's  purpose  throughout,  it  really  begins 
and  ends  with  ourselves,  both  in  impulse  and  plan. 
Furthermore,  if  in  the  early  morning  our  spirits  are 
attuned  to  the  Divine  Spirit,  not  only  shall  we  receive 
"leadings"  at  that  time,  but  all  through  the  day  we 
shall  be  sensitive  to  every  summons  to  service.  A 
letter  of  Drummond's  written  on  a  summer  holiday 
tour  in  young  manhood,  chronicles  the  result  of  two 
such  leadings  in  a  single  day,  and  is  worth  quoting 
as  typical  of  what  was  with  him  almost  a  daily 
occurrence :  "I  had  some  wonderful  'leading'  on  Satur- 
day— all  the  more  that  it  was  unexpected.  It  would 
take  too  long  to  tell,  but  I  had  two  distinct  and  valua- 
ble opportunities  of  talking  personally  and  in  detail 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  45 

about  the  'unsearchable  riches.'  The  outline  of  the 
first  case  is  something  like  this :  I  started  in  the  morn- 
ing for  UUswater,  missed  a  seat  on  the  two  coaches, 
walked  half  way,  was  picked  up  by  a  private  party, 
who  offered  me  a  seat  beside  the  driver.  At  first  he 
was  very  quiet,  and  after  some  time  I  noticed  tears 
in  his  eyes.  I  found  he  had  just  buried  his  wife.  He 
was  in  very  deep  distress.  He  was  a  good  respectable 
man,  a  teetotaler,  but  plainly  did  not  know  the  truth. 
I  did  not  tell  him  much  then,  but  I  got  his  address 
and  mean  to  write  him  to-night.  I  hope  something 
will  come  of  it ;  the  poor  fellow  seemed  very  anxious. 
Another  of  the  cases  was  in  coming  down  Helvellyn. 
I  went  to  UUswater,  dined,  and  started  for  Helvellyn 
alone  about  two.  It  was  a  lovely  afternoon  and  the 
view  from  the  top  was  marvellous.  In  coming  down 
I  met  a  young  fellow  who  was  in  great  anxiety  about 
a  companion  whom  he  had  lost  on  the  mountain.  He 
had  searched  everywhere,  night  was  coming  on,  and 
he  feared  his  friend  had  been  seized  with  a  fit.  He 
didn't  know  what  to  do,  but  the  question,  'What  do 
you  think  of  praying?'  led  to  a  long  and  earnest  talk. 
He  was  a  Swedenborgian,  but  had  practically  no  re- 
ligion  I  do  not  know  that  any  positive  good 


46  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

was  done;  I  mean  I  saw  no  immediate  effect;  but  we 
talked  the  whole  matter  round  very  freely  and  plain- 
ly. I  am  afraid  these  details  will  be  uninteresting 
on  paper,  and  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  a  third.  For 
my  own  part,  I  felt  very  grateful  for  them."* 

In  the  third  place,  this  time  of  prayer  is  necessary 
not  only  to  discipline  and  refine  our  spirits  and  to 
enable  us  to  receive  our  great  unseen  Captain's  order 
for  the  day:  but,  in  addition,  and  most  important  of 
all,  we  are  there  releasing  spiritual  forces  of  untold 
potency  which  will  be  serving  as  allies  in  our  spiritual 
warfare.  'Trayer  moves  the  Hand  that  moves  the 
world."  The  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  the  work  which  no  human  power  can  com- 
pass, follows,  we  know,  certain  higher,  mysterious 
laws,  in  the  working  of  which  the  prayer  of  faith  is 
somehow  most  effectually  involved.  This  is  the  kind 
of  objective  result  of  our  praying  to  which  St.  James 
referred  when  he  wrote:  "The  heart- felt  supplication 
of  a  righteous  man  exerts  a  mighty  influence"  (James 
5 :  16,  Weymouth  tr.).  Someone  has  said,  "The  Holy 
Spirit  always  works  at  both  ends  of  the  line,"  and 
we  may  be  sure  that  when  we  have  entered  into  that 
*  Life  of  Drummond,  pp.  118,  119. 


SOUL,  '  SURGBRY  47 

supreme  alliance,  through  prayer,  the  Spirit  of  God 
will  not  only  go  with  us  but  before  us,  preparing  the 
soil  of  the  heart  of  our  friend  for  the  seed  that  we 
are  sent  to  sow.  Thus  did  Philip  the  humble 
evangelist,  bidden  to  challenge  the  attention  of  the 
mighty  Ethiopian  official,  find  that  God's  Spirit  had 
already  prepared  the  way  by  prompting  the  eunuch 
to  read  the  very  passage  of  Isaiahs  prophesy  most 
closely  related  to  the  message  which  Philip  was  sent 
to  bring  (Acts  8:  32,  33).  So  did  Ananias,  the  ser- 
vant of  God  in  Damascus,  following  the  summons  of 
God's  Spirit  to  undertake  the  fearsome  task  of  inter- 
viewing the  notorious  enemy  of  the  Christian  Church, 
Saul  of  Tarsus,  find  that  the  Spirit  had  already  hum- 
bled that  proud  heart,  so  that  he  was  indeed  "actually 
praying"  (Acts  9:  11,  Weymouth  tr.).  So,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  very  much  of  our  attempted  personal 
work  ineffectual,  because  we  are  working  alone,  un- 
supported by  this  mighty  ally  on  whom  the  early 
church  called  so  insistently  and  with  such  amazing 
results. 

Once  we  realize  that  the  method  comes  from  God, 
and  is  applicable  in  detail  to  each  individual  case 
confronting  us,  we  can  safely  proceed  to  ask  whether 


48  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

there  is  not  a  certain  general  line  of  approach  in  soul- 
winning,  whether  there  are  not  helpful  sign-posts  on 
the  way,  from  defeat  to  victory  in  Christ,  along  which 
we  would  lead  those  who  have  gone  astray.  The  sim- 
plest rule  I  have  heard  consists  in  the  three  words: 
Woo,  Win,  Warn.  Perhaps  we  may  better  consider 
what  lies  behind  these  three  ideas  by  adopting  the 
fuller  nomenclature  suggested  by  Mr.  Buchman  as 
indicating  the  normal  procedure  of  the  soul-physician : 
Confidence,  Confession,  Conviction,  Conversion,  Con- 
servation. Let  us  consider  in  turn  these  five  succes- 
sive stages,  the  boundaries  of  which  often  so  merge 
into  each  other  as  to  be  indistinguishable,  although  all 
five  are  probably  present  in  every  successful  instance 
of  soul-winning. 


1. 

Confibence 

By  this  we  mean  coming  so  wholly  into  the  con- 
fidence of  the  one  we  seek  to  help  along  the  avenue 
of  personal  friendship  that  we  know  his  verdict  on  his 
own  case,  see  him  through  his  own  eyes.  The  physi- 
cian of  souls  must  know  his  patients  intimately,  or  he 
cannot  diagnose  their  troubles  accurately.  Some  of 
the  material  for  his  diagnosis,  in  addition  to  that 
which  arrives  through  the  primary  channel  of  spiritual 
apprehension  to  which  we  have  already  alluded,  will 
arise  out  of  a  study  of  human  nature  as  a  whole.  It 
was  his  knowledge  of  the  human  heart  that  made 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  so  irresistible  a  preacher,  and 
that  gave  him  the  content  of  the  very  suggestive 
chapter  on  the  ''Study  of  Human  Nature"  in  his  Yale 
Lectures  on  Preaching.  This  is  a  study  in  which  all 
of  us  can  engage,  with  the  material  lying  about  us 
on  every  hand.  If  it  is  worth  while  for  the  salesman 
of  a  business-house  to  study  men  in  order  that  he  may 
know  how  best  to  win  them  to  a  desire  to  purchase 
his  wares,  how  much  more  important  is  that  study  for 


50  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

us  who  would  win  men  to  a  new  life  of  spiritual 
health  and  victory  in  Christ.  Says  Drummond: 
"Many  men  study  men,  but  not  to  sympathise  with 
them:  the  lawyer  for  gain,  the  artist  for  fame,  the 
actor  for  applause,  the  novelist  for  profession.  How 
well  up  is  the  actor  in  plot  and  passion  and  intrigue! 
How  deftly  can  the  novelist  anatomise  love  and  jeal- 
ousy, vengeance  and  hate!  And  when  there  are  men 
found  to  study  human  nature  for  its  own  sake,  for 
filthy  lucre's  sake,  shall  there  be  none  to  do  it  for 
man's  sake — for  God's  sake?"*  Further  on  he  quotes 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  as  saying  somewhere  that  we 
must  try  to  be  "a  man  that  knows  men  in  the  street, 
at  their  work,  human  nature  in  its  shirt-sleeves — who 
makes  bargains  with  deacons  instead  of  talking  over 
texts  with  them,  and  a  man  who  has  found  out  that 
there  are  plenty  of  praying  rogues  and  swearing  saints 
in  the  world."t 

And  just  as  the  doctor  needs  to  know  the  whole 
subject  of  disease,  so  the  soul-doctor  must  know  sin 
That  does  not  mean  experiential  knowledge,  in  either 
case,  but  the  knowledge  which  comes  through  vital 
healing  contest  with  the  real  life-experiences  of  men. 
*  The  New  Evangelism,  p.  284.  t  Ibid,  p.  283. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  51 

Books  can  help  us  here,  but  life  will  yield  far  more. 
Mr.  Buchman  tells  of  how  in  his  early  preaching 
days  there  was  no  conviction  of  sin  in  the  audience, 
no  spiritual  results,  and  he  could  not  understand  what 
was  the  trouble  until  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer,  of  London, 
when  his  advice  was  asked,  replied:  "Tell  your  peo- 
ple on  Sunday  the  things  they  are  telling  you  during 
the  week."  The  trouble  was  that  they  were  telling 
him  nothing.  He  was  not  in  their  confidence,  and  his 
sermons,  instead  of  being  woven  of  the  very  stuff 
of  their  lives — their  temptations  and  doubts  and  prob- 
lems and  failures — were  intellectual  dissertations 
which  largely  went  over  the  heads  of  the  people  and, 
even  when  they  reached  their  understanding,  did  not 
touch  and  move  their  hearts.  No  speaker  to  men  in 
the  last  half  century  better  illustrates  the  positive  side 
of  this  truth  than  Drummond.  Consider  the  following 
paragraph,  beginning  an  address  on  Temptation  in  his 
memorable  Edinburgh  Lectures  to  Students:  "Gentle- 
men, I  must  ask  the  forbearance  of  the  men  here  to- 
night who  are  in  intellectual  difficulties  if  I  speak  to 
the  men  who  are  in  moral  degradation.  It  has  come 
to  my  knowledge  through  the  week,  from  a  bundle  of 
letters  from  men  now  sitting  in  this  room,  that  there 


52  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

are  a  large  number  with  their  backs  to  the  wall. 
They  are  dead  beat,  and  I  shall  consider  their  cases 
first."*  After  such  an  introduction  could  there  be  an 
inattentative  ear  in  the  whole  vast  audience  ?  The  min- 
ister who  knows  men  will  win  men,  provided  he  has 
evangelistic  passion  and  constant  touch  with  God's 
spirit. 

Paul  can  set  us  an  example  here.  I  have  recently- 
been  re-studying  his  epistles  to  glean  from  them  for 
my  own  use  what  the  great  apostle  knew  of  the 
spiritual  diseases  of  men — and  the  result  is  at  once 
suggestive  and  appalling.  One  who  does  not  know 
men  to-day  might  say  that  if  what  Paul  wrote — for 
example  in  the  first  chapter  of  Romans — was  true  in 
his  day  and  world,  it  is  not  characteristic  of  the  India 
or  Europe  or  America  that  we  know  today.  But  we 
should  ask  the  physician  about  disease,  not  the  Chris- 
tion  scientist  who  denies  its  existence.  We  should 
ask  the  true  winner  of  souls  about  the  sins  that  are 
cutting  the  nerve  of  spiritual  power  in  men  and  women 
all  around  us.  Yungtao,  the  great  Chinese  social  re- 
former who  recently  became  a  Christian,  says  that 
China's  three  great  sins  are:  concubinage,  "squeze" 
*  Life  of  Drummond,  p.  515. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  53 

and  gambling.  And  he  further  says  that  Christian  mis- 
sionaries so  often  fail,  either  through  ignorance  or 
fear,  in  not  speaking  directly  and  courageously  of 
these  deepest  fundamental  sins,  and  dealing  incisively 
and  adequately  with  the  sinner,  instead  of  talking  of 
sin  in  abstract,  theological  language.  What  Yungtao 
has  the  courage  to  say  with  regard  to  China,  needs 
to  be  said  no  less  regarding  Japan  and  India,  Great 
Britain  and  America.  Indeed,  Harold  Begbie  says  it 
in  his  own  way,  regarding  Great  Britain,  in  his  Crisis 
of  Morals. 

Not  only  must  the  soul  physician  know  the  soul, 
in  health  and  disease,  the  universal  human  heart, 
which  is  found  to  be  so  surprisingly  alike  in  all  lands 
when  its  passions  and  fears  and  aspirations  are  an- 
alyzed; he  must  also  know  the  particular  individuals 
to  whom  God's  spirit  has  directed  him  to  lay  siege  with 
all  the  powers,  seen  and  unseen,  that  he  can  muster  to 
his  support.  As  a  preliminary  step  in  gaining  his 
confidence,  let  him  study  his  patient's  tastes  in  litera- 
ture and  drama,  his  likes  and  dislikes,  his  habits  and 
association.  Horace  Annesley  Vachel,  in  a  recent 
novel  (Between  Two  Worlds)  tells  of  how  a  father's 
unexpected  discovery  of  the  type  of  books  his  daughter 


54  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

was  secretly  reading  broke  through  the  crust  of  his 
blind,  worshipful  belief  in  her  innocence,  and  gave 
him  the  knowledge  that  he  needed  to  make  him  the 
real  help  to  his  daughter  that  he  ought  always  to  have 
been.  How  many  parents  fail  tragically  in  helping 
their  children  in  the  delicate  and  critical  problems  of 
their  sex  life  through  ignorance  compacted  of  unholy 
reticence,  blasphemous  confidence  and  sheer  coward- 
ice. And  the  same  would  apply  with  no  less  force  to 
teacher  and  pupil,  and  pastor  and  parishioner,  and  to 
most  of  us  in  our  work  of  personal  evangelism. 

This  background  of  knowledge  of  men  and  of  sin, 
coupled  with  a  study  of  particular  individuals,  is  indis- 
pensable, but  our  diagnosis  of  any  individual  case  can 
never  be  complete  until,  to  our  general  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  our  specific  knowledge,  such  as  any 
observant  detective  might  acquire,  of  the  man  we  seek 
to  win,  there  is  added  the  knowledge  that  is  locked 
away  from  the  detective  which  comes  through  the 
lips  of  the  patient  himself. 

In  introducing  the  word  "detective,"  let  us  pause 
to  observe  with  emphasis  that  the  true  soul-winner  is 
no  spiritual  detective,  secretly  spying  on  his  friends 
and  neighbors,  with  a  morbid  taste  for  discovering 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  55 

the  failings  of  men,  and  then  following  them  with 
spiritual  nagging.  We  do  not  think  of  our  family 
physician  as  a  detective ;  far  less  can  we  thus  think  of 
one  whom  God  can  use  to  help  us  spiritually,  but 
who  can  only  help  us  adequately  and  permanently 
when  we  are  as  frank  with  him  as  with  the  physician 
who  nurses  our  bodies  back  to  health.  We  must  re- 
member, however,  that  the  peril  of  our  becoming  the 
mere  detective  is  always  present,  and  can  only  be 
avoided  as  we  realize  what  almost  infinite  respect  and 
love  and  faith,  what  constant  consciousness  of  the 
dignity  and  worth  of  an  immortal  human  soul,  must 
be  his  who  would  serve  as  a  medium  to  men  of  the 
healing  power  of  Christ.  Above  all,  the  physician 
must  keep  human,  sensitive,  courteous,  remembering 
his  own  shortcomings  and  respecting  another  man's 
reticences.  Says  Drummond:  "Brusqueness  and  an 
impolite  familiarity  may  do  very  well  when  dealing 
with  his  brains,  but  without  tenderness  and  courtesy 
you  can  only  approach  his  heart  to  shock  it.  The 
whole  of  etiquette  is  founded  on  respect;  and  by  far 
the  highest  and  tenderest  etiquette  is  the  etiquette  of 
soul  with  soul."* 


5)6  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

Yet  at  the  same  time  we  must  also  remember  the 
great  truth  to  which  Drummond,  out  of  his  all  but 
matchless  experience,  gives  the  concluding  emhpasis 
in  the  article  from  which  I  have  quoted  so  often :  "Men 
do  not  say  much  about  these  things,  but  the  amount 
of  spiritual  longing  in  the  world  at  the  present  moment 
is  absolutely  incredible.  No  one  can  even  faintly 
appreciate  the  intense  spiritual  unrest  which  seethes 
everywhere  around  him;  but  one  who  has  tried  to 
discern,  who  has  begun  by  private  experiment,  by 
looking  into  himself,  by  taking  observations  upon  the 
people  near  him  and  known  to  him,  has  witnessed  a 
spectacle  sufficient  to  call  for  the  loudest  and  most 
emphatic  action."*  Every  personal  worker  could  mul- 
tiply proofs  of  this  fact,  and  of  how  his  action  on  that 
hypothesis  brought  further  proofs  of  its  truth.  Says 
W.  D.  Weatherford  in  his  latest  book,  after  speaking 
of  our  natural  reticence  in  the  West,  in  speaking  of 
religious  matters  requiring  a  break  in  the  barrier  of 
reserve  that  holds  us  apart  and  obviates  the  reciprocal 
confidence  on  which  all  true  helpfulness  is  based: 
"The  very  fact  that  religion  is  so  vital  to  persons 
means  that  I  must  continue  to  share  what  I  have  found 

*  The  New  Evangelism,  p,  280. 

*  The  New  Evangelism,  pp.  2S3,  284. 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  57 

so  valuable  to  my  own  growth.  My  testimony  need 
not  be  prying  or  lacking  in  reverence,  but  it  may  be 
intensely  in  earnest.  If  I  have  a  real  friend  who  has 
meant  much  to  me,  I  am  eager  to  share  that  friend 
with  other  friends  and  even  good  acquaintances.  In 
hke  manner,  if  I  know  God  and  He  means  life  to  me, 
I  must  of  necessity  desire  to  share  this  experience. 
By  some  method  or  other  I  must  break  through  all 
reserve  and  share  my  treasure.^t  In  another  place 
he  gives  his  experience:  "Not  only  do  men  not  re- 
sent being  approached,  but  I  am  sure  that  many  of 
them  are  wondering  why  we  do  not  open  the  conver- 
sation. I  shall  never  forget  an  experience  I  had  some 
years  ago  at  Virginia  Polytechnic  Institute.  After 
speaking  one  night,  I  came  downstairs  and  was  just 
starting  to  leave  the  building.  It  was  a  rainy  night; 
and  out  on  the  porch,  which  was  very  dimly  lighted 
from  within,  there  stood  a  young  college  man.  I  greet- 
ed him  as  I  walked  out,  and  noticed  that  his  greeting 
was  rather  cordial.  I  then  ventured  the  question  as 
to  whether  he  had  attended  the  meeting.  His  reply 
was  cordial  again  and  in  the  affirmative.  Made  a 
little  more  bold,  I  suggested  that  he  was  probably  one 

tW.  D.  Weatherford,  Ph.  'D.,The  Christian  Life,  a  Nor- 
mal Experience,  p.  183.    Association  Press,  New  York. 


58  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

of  the  Christian  workers.  No,  he  was  not  even  a 
Christian!  1  asked  him  if  he  would  mind  going  in 
and  talking  it  over.  Imagine  my  amazement  when 
he  replied:  'I  have  been  standing  here  waiting  for 
you  to  come  out,  hoping  you  would  ask  me  to  do  that.' 
After  half  an  hour  he  made  a  decision  for  the  Chris- 
tion  life.  Suppose  I  had  missed  that  chance  !"*  And 
then  he  gives  this  instance  of  failure  to  follow  the  inner 
leading  and  break  through  the  reserve  that  keeps  us 
silent:  "Once  at  a  Northfield  Conference  I  knew  a 
young  man  from  Yale,  who  said  he  had  come  down  to 
this  conference  with  the  delegation,  thinking  that 
surely  some  man  would,  in  that  atmosphere,  speak 
to  him  about  the  Christian  life.  One  of  our  inter- 
national student  secretaries  of  the  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Association  told  me  that  his  room-mate  in  college, 
a  prominent  athlete,  had  to  make  this  secretary  talk 
to  him  about  the  religious  life.  What  must  people  think 
of  the  value  we  put  upon  our  Christian  experience  when 
we  are  so  slow  to  share  its  blessings  ?"t  In  an  Ameri- 
can university,  after  an  outside  evangelist  (A.  J. 
Elliott)  had  won  a  student  to  Christ,  when  the  college 

*W.  D.  Weatherford,  Ph.  D.,  The  Christian  Life,  a  Nor- 
mal Experience,  pp.  192,  193.    Association  Press,  New  York, 
t  Ibid.,  p.  193. 


SOUL  '  SURGERY  59 

pastor  started  to  shake  his  hand  by  way  of  congratu- 
lation the  student  refused  to  take  it  until  he  had  told 
this  man,  to  whom  was  entrusted  the  religious  life  of 
the  students  of  the  university,  his  honest  opinion  of 
one  who  had  been  closelyassociated  with  him  ever  since 
he  entered  college  and  yet  who,  as  he  expressed  it, 
"would  have  seen  me  go  to  hell  without  telling  me  per- 
sonally about  Jesus  Christ."  Milton's  indictment  still 
holds  true  of  too  many  ministers  of  our  time:  "The 
hungry  sheep  look  up  and  are  not  fed."  But  we  can- 
not apply  it  only  to  the  clergy.  All  of  us  who  pretend 
to  be  Christian  workers,  followers  of  Christ,  are  sur- 
rounded by  hungry  sheep  who  are  dependent  upon  us, 
whether  or  not  they  or  we  realize  it,  for  finding  the 
way  to  the  great  spiritual  Shepherd  of  men's  souls. 

Undoubtedly  one  reason  why  men  do  not  confide 
in  us  more,  even  when  they  are  longing  for  help  and 
real  friendship,  is  because  of  our  own  reserve  which 
holds  them  back.  We  must  be  as  ready  to  give  as 
we  are  to  receive,  realizing  the  need  of  reciprocal  con- 
fidence. It  is  generally  understood  that  if  the  preach- 
er's message  is  to  strike  home  to  the  hearts  of  his 
hearers,  it  must  proceed  from  his  own  heart.  That 
which  comes   from  the   heart   reaches  the  heart,  as 


6o  SOUl  -  SURGERY 

the  French  proverb  says.  If  preaching  is  "truth 
through  personahty,"  as  Beecher  defined  it,  it  must 
come  charged  with  the  authoritative  power  of  per- 
sonal experience.  There  must  be  an  abandon  of  self- 
giving.  But  what  has  not  been  as  clearly  seen  is  that 
the  personal  evangelist,  like  the  pulpit  evangelist, 
must  also  give  himself,  his  treasured  experiences  of 
the  soul,  with  similar  abandon,  if  he  would  woo  the 
confidence  which  must  precede  true  friendship  and 
service.  And  who  that  has  attempted  both  does  not 
know  how  much  more  difficult  it  is  to  achieve  this 
personal  abandon  in  the  private  parlour  where  only 
two  are  present,  than  in  the  pulpit  where  there  is  a 
second  barrier  of  unapproachableness,  keeping  the 
audience  at  a  distance  even  after  the  barrier  of  per- 
sonal reserve  has  been  thrown  aside. 

With  most  of  us  this  abandon,  this  willingness  to 
be  "a  fool  for  Christ's  sake,"  is  probably  lacking  to 
some  extent,  simply  because  we  do  not  care  enough. 
Our  "passion  for  souls"  is  theological  and  abstract, 
rather  than  personal  and  concrete.  Drummond's 
biographer,  who  was  his  intimate  friend,  tells  of  how, 
on  his  return  to  college,  after  the  great  mission  of 
1874  which  made  him  famous  at  23,  his  friends  were 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  61 

"a  little  afraid  of  him  and  of  his  chances  for  tackling 
us  upon  the  religious  Hfe."  But  he  goes  on,  "We 
felt  that  he  was  interested  in  us,  and  his  interest  being 
without  officiousness  won  our  confidence  and  made  us 
frank  with  him.  We  could  tell  him,  as  we  could  not 
tell  others,  the  worst  about  ourselves — the  worst,  and, 
just  as  easily  also,  the  best — our  ideals  and  ambitions, 
of  which  men  are  often  as  ashamed  to  speak  as  they 
are  about  their  sins.  To  the  latter  he  was  never  in- 
dulgent, or  aught  but  faithful  with  those  who  confessed 
to  him.  But  in  every  man  he  saw  good,  which  the 
man  himself  had  either  forgotten  or  was  ignorant  of."'*' 

One  of  the  chief  secrets  of  the  success  of  the  Sal- 
vation Army  has  been  the  element  of  deep  personal 
love  involved.  As  the  founder  himself.  General  Booth, 
has  written:  "The  first  vital  step  in  saving  outcasts 
consists  in  making  them  feel  that  some  decent  human 
being  cares  enough  for  them  to  take  an  interest  in  the 
question  whether  they  are  to  rise  or  sink." 

It  was  because  the  pastor  cared  for  individual  men 

and  women,  that  under  the  ministry  of  the  late  Herbert 

Roswell  Bates,  the  Spring  Street  Presbyterian  Church, 

in  the  tenement  house  district  of  New  York  City,  grew 

"^  Life  of  Drummond,  p.  115. 


62  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

rapidly  from  a  dejected  remnant  of  a  congregation 
into  a  powerful  church  of  six  hundred  members.  One 
of  his  fellow-workers  contributes  this  incident  to  the 
biography  of  Bates,  by  S.  Ralph  Harlow :  "One  event, 
which  made  a  lasting  impression  upon  me,  1  want  to 
share  with  you.  It  was  during  an  illness  when  we  lived 
together  in  the  Annex  of  the  Neighbourhood  House, 
and  1  had  been  helping  to  care  for  him.  One  eve- 
ning, as  he  lay  on  his  bed,  he  asked  me  to  bring  him 
his  little  book  which  contained  the  names  of  all  the 
members  of  his  congregation.  As  he  held  it  in  his 
hand,  I  sat  by  his  side,  and  he  told  me  of  his  love  for 
them  all.  He  said:  "I  know  what  it  means  when 
I  read  those  words,  'He  was  a  man  of  sorrows  and 
acquainted  with  griefs,'  for  I,  too,  have  tried  to  carry 
their  sorrows  and  bear  their  burdens !"  He  told  me 
how  he  used  to  spend  hours  on  his  knees,  praying 
for  each  one  by  name,  bringing  to  God  their  trials 
and  temptations.  He  said  that  at  first  they  had  been 
like  one  great  family,  and  then  he  broke  down,  for 
he  was  very  weak  at  the  time,  as  he  told  how  the 
church  had  grown  so  large  that  he  could  no  longer 
bring  to  God  each  one  by  name,  and  know  their  bur- 
dens, as  he  could  before  his  work  had  grown  to  such 


SOUL  '  SURGERY  63 

proportions.  That  little  talk  gave  me  an  insight  into 
the  heart  of  a  man  who  was  the  kind  of  minister  I 
longed  to  become.  ""^  To  those  who  have  attended 
student  conferences  at  Northfield  in  recent  years,  a 
familiar  figure  at  almost  any  hour  of  the  day  up  to 
midnight,  or  later,  was  "Herb"  Bates,  sitting  under 
a  tree  in  some  quiet  spot  in  earnest  conversation  with 
a  single  student  about  the  deepest  things  of  life. 

Let  me  give  a  single  example  of  the  same  drawing 
power  of  painstaking  love  in  India.  Professor  J.  B. 
Raju,  of  Madras  Christian  College,  has  said  that  his 
first  vital  interest  in  Christianity  dates  from  the  morn- 
ing when  he  learned  that  Sherwood  Eddy  had  been 
sitting  up  all  the  preceding  night  for  the  purpose  of 
making  a  prayer  and  Bible  study  calendar  for  him. 

Often  the  knowledge  that  we  have  been  praying 
for  a  friend  conies  to  him,  at  the  right  moment,  with 
arresting  power.  The  very  surprise  of  learning  that 
another  cares  so  much  gives  him  pause,  and  may  lead 
him  to  pray  for  himself  with  real  earnestness.  There 
came  to  me  last  year,  on  unimpeachable  authority,  a 
recent  incident  in  the  life  of  a  distinguished  British 

*  S.  Ralph  Harlow :  Life  of  H.  Roswell  Bates,  pp.  54,  55. 
Fleming  H.  Revell  Co. 


64  SOUL  '  SURGBRY 

journalist,  the  change  in  whose  later  writing  reveals 
a  transformation  in  his  inner  life.  A  friend  of  his, 
generally  known  as  a  society  woman  but  actually  a 
woman  of  prayer  and  an  earnest  if  unconventional 
Christian  worker,  sent  word  to  this  man,  asking  him 
to  come  to  her  home  on  a  matter  of  importance. 
When  he  arrived,  she  asked  him  to  wait  in  the  draw- 
ingroom  while  she  went  to  an  upper  room  to  pray  for 
him.  Left  alone,  he  later  told  a  friend  that  he  turned 
over  the  pages  of  the  books  and  magazines  on  the 
table  with  increasing  disquiet,  until  at  the  end  of  a 
half  hour  he  began  himself  to  pray.  When  his  friend 
returned,  they  had  prayer  together,  at  the  close  of 
which  he  assured  her  that  a  mysterious  change  had 
take  place  in  his  heart,  a  change  to  which  his  life 
has  since  given  witness.  Only  the  courage  and  love 
born  in  prayer  could  lead  one  to  venture  for  Christ  as 
this  woman  did,  to  meet  with  such  success  as  probably 
no  other  method  could  have  achieved.  Often  the  un- 
conventional way,  introducing  an  element  of  surprise 
as  well  as  a  revelation  of  love,  may  take  another 
unaware,  and  cause  him  to  look  at  religious  matters 
from  a  new  angle. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  65 

From  all  these  illustrations,  it  is  evident  that  true 
"lovers  of  their  fellow-men"  do  not  possess  an 
abstract  ''love  of  the  crowd"  but  a  warm,  sympathetic, 
enduring  interest  in  individuals  around  them,  which 
expresses  itself  in  varied  forms.  And  to  such  men  and 
women  the  confidence  of  others  naturally  comes. 


2. 

Confession 

This  is  only  the  last  word  of  confidence,  denoting 
that  the  personal  worker  has  won  through  to  the 
innermost  recess  of  his  friend's  life,  has  been  privi- 
leged to  see  into  the  darkened  chamber  whose  door  is 
usually  closed  and  barred,  so  that  he  knows  his  man — 
way  back  into  the  motives  and  desires  that  are  the  roots 
of  all  his  actions.  Through  the  avenue  of  confidence 
we  win  a  man's  friendship.  Through  confession  we 
may  win  his  soul — for  Christ.  Even  where  there  is 
abundance  of  natural  confidence,  our  work  may  be  a 
comparative  failure,  because  we  have  stopped  short 
of  the  ultimate  confession  that  is  needed  in  order  to 
complete  penitence  and  victory.  If,  as  Drummond 
says,  the  furniture  of  a  man's  inner  life  can  be  totally 
changed  in  an  hour,  it  is  necessary  that  light  should 
be  let  into  all  of  the  rooms  of  his  soul.  The  house 
must  be  refurnished  throughout.  Here  our  analogy 
of  the  physician  of  men's  bodies  will  help  us  again, 
though  it  is  only  partial  since  it  stops  short  of  the 
moral  issue.     The  physician's    diagnosis    cannot    be 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  67 

complete  until  the  patient  has  given  him  his  entire 
confidence,  which  may  involve  certain  revelations  of 
his  past  history  or  present  habits  which  he  naturally 
shrinks  from  disclosing.  Until  the  physician  is  sure 
that  he  has  all  the  data,  he  must  continue  a  verbal 
probing  which  may  be  fully  as  important  as  any 
probing  that  may  later  need  to  be  done  with  instru- 
ments. However  reluctant  a  man  may  be  at  this  point, 
he  is  seldom  resentful,  for  he  realises  how  much  may 
be  staked  upon  his  making  a  clean  breast.  A  doctor 
in  China  told  us  that  often  when  he  is  practically 
certain  that  the  patient  has  been  indulging  in  some 
secret  vice,  he  has  found  that  the  simplest,  surest  mode 
of  procedure  is  to  ask  quickly  and  naturally,  naming 
the  suspected  practice,  "When  did  you  do  that  last?" 
The  sick  man,  taken  ofif  his  guard,  instantly  tells  the 
truth. 

Every  physician  knows  the  importance  of  probing 
to  the  root  of  the  trouble,  to  avoid  the  danger  of  false 
diagnosis  and  superficial  or  harmful  treatment,  which 
might  even  result  fatally.  Is  it  any  less  important  for 
the  soul-surgeon  with  a  life-destiny  at  stake  to  make 
certain  that  he  has  reached  the  ultimate  seat  of  the 
trouble  before  he  seeks  to  administer  the  cure?    It  is 


68  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

well  for  him  to  remember  that  men  are  living  their 
lives  on  four  levels — spiritual,  intellectual,  social  and 
physical — and  that  the  diseased  spot,  the  centre  of 
infection  that  is  spreading  in  all  directions,  may  be  in 
any  of  the  four.  It  may  be  that  either  pride,  dis- 
honesty, selfishness  or  impurity  corresponding  roughly 
to  the  four  levels  enumerated,  is  slowly  poisoning  the 
entire  personality.  The  trouble  with  so  much  of  our 
evangelism,  public  and  personal,  is  that  we  are  not 
actually  reaching  men  at  the  real  seat  of  trouble  and 
temptation.  John  Krishnaswamy,  in  his  little  pamph- 
let on  personal  work,  uses  a  telling  illustration  from 
Hindu  mythology :  "In  the  Ramayana  we  read  how, 
again  and  again,  Ravana's  heads,  though  momentarily 
cut  off  by  the  arrow  of  Rama,  began  to  grow  one  by 
one  in  their  proper  places.  Rama  was  told  that  Ravana 
could  be  killed  only  if  the  arrow  hit  him  at  the  life- 
centre,  and  -the  giant  was  killed  as  soon  as  the  arrow 
hit  the  life-spot.  In  exactly  the  same  way  misdirected 
spiritual  effort  will  be  fruitless  or  worse,  for,  by  aim- 
ing at  random,  we  not  only  do  not  gain  the  individual 
but  spoil  the  chances  of  his  being  gained  afterwards."* 
It  is  with  a  view  to  finding  this  life-spot  that  we  are 

*  Krishnaswamy's  Personal  Work,  p.  9.    Association  Press, 

Calcutta. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  69 

bidden  by  Sherwood  Eddy  to  "make  the  moral  test" 
as  the  third  step  in  soul-winning.t  Those  who  best 
know  the  facts  declare  that  ninety  per  cent  of  the 
ultimate  sin  around  us  is  on  the  lowest  physical  level, 
to  which  we  penetrate  most  rarely  and  with  the  great- 
est mal-adaptation  in  our  personal  work. 

Here,  in  India,  it  is  our  ever-present  temptation 
to  seek  to  argue  a  man  into  the  Kingdom  by  dissipat- 
ing his  intellectual  doubts,  real  or  fancied,  when  the 
seat  of  the  trouble  is  impurity,  which  has  so  coated 
with  filth  the  window  of  his  spiritual  faculty  that  it  is 
simply  impossible  for  him  to  see  God.  While  writing 
this  page,  a  friend  who  has  had  unusual  success  in 
Christian  work  among  Indian  Muslim  boys,  was  tell- 
ing me  how  from  one  after  another  he  has  been 
receiving  confessions  of  scarcely  believable  moral 
dereliction  at  an  early  age,  which  had  convinced  him 

t  Mr.  Eddy's  and  Mr.  Buchman's  helpful  "Ten  Suggestions 
for  Personal  work,"  viewed  from  a  physician's  standpoint, 
are  as  follows : — "1.  Get  a  point  of  contact.  2.  Diagnose  the 
person's  real  difficulty.  3.  Make  the  moral  test.  4.  Avoid  argu- 
ment. 5.  Aim  to  conduct  the  interview  yourself.  6.  Adapt  the 
truth  to  the  hearer's  need.  7.  Bring  the  person  face  to  face 
with  Christ.    8.   Show  the  way  out  of  the  special  difficulty. 

9.  Bring  the  person  finally  to  the  point  of  decision  and  action. 

10.  Start  the  person  on  the  new  life  with  simple,  concrete  and 
definite  suggestions  regarding  daily  Bible  study,  prayer,  over- 
coming temptation  and  service  for  others." 


70  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

of  the  need  in  his  work  of  always  making  the  moral 
test.  Unfortunately,  it  is  too  often  true  of  our  Chris- 
tian students  as  well,  that  there  is  immorality  in  their 
lives  of  which  their  teachers  are  altogether  ignorant. 
Undoubtedly,  one  cause  of  the  failure  of  many  con- 
verts to  justify  previous  expectations,  and  one  reason 
for  the  frequent  lapses  into  a  former  faith,  is  the  fact 
that  an  operation  has  never  been  performed  on  the 
diseased  member,  through  the  healing  power  of  Christ 
being  brought  to  bear  right  at  the  center  of  infection. 
A  man  can  have  no  saving  sense  of  the  power  of  the 
living  Christ,  if  that  power  has  not  saved  him  from  the 
sin  that,  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  he  knows  lives  on,  and 
that  is  festering  and  poisoning  his  spiritual  life.  It  is 
the  easiest  way  to  argue- with  a  man  about  his  doubts, 
of  which  he  may  be  half-proud ;  it  is  the  most  difficult 
thing  to  evoke  a  confession  of  the  sin  of  which  he  is 
altogether  ashamed.  Sherwood  Eddy  told  some  of  us 
in  Lahore,  in  December,  1915,  about  a  man  who  came 
to  him  at  Yale  University  during  a  series  of  special 
meetings,  asking  for  help  in  resolving  his  doubt  of  the 
existence  of  God.  Mr.  Eddy  gave  him  all  the  proofs 
he  could  think  of  and  the  man  went  away  unconvinced. 
Later,  Mr.  Eddy  said,  Mr.  Buchman,  who  had  charge 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  71 

of  the  interview  end  of  the  meetings,  came  in  touch 
with  the  same  man,  found  that  he  was  Hving  in  gross 
sin,  and  was  able  to  bring  about  his  genuine  conver- 
sion. Recently  in  an  Indian  city  I  met  a  young  man 
who,  I  was  told,  had  been  six  times  a  Christian,  and  as 
many  times  had  reverted  to  the  Arya  Samaj,  of  which 
he  was  originally  a  member.  He  was  full  of  doubts, 
which  neither  the  Samaj  nor  the  missionaries  could 
dissipate.  A  Christian  physician  to  whom  he  was  sent 
for  treatment  discovered  quite  naturally  that  his 
trouble  was  fundamentally  not  intellectual  but  moral. 
Evil  habits  had  undermined  his  power  of  volition,  so 
that  he  was  really  unable  to  "make  up"  what  mind 
he  possessed.  He  had  never  found  Christ  on  that 
plane,  and  was  not  likely  to  do  so  unless  the  Christian 
worker  with  whom  he  was  dealing  diagnosed  his 
trouble  and  prescribed  the  right  treatment. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  this  subject.  Not  only 
is  this  entire  self-disclosure  needed  in  order  that  the 
spiritual  surgeon  may  possess  all  the  data  for  an 
accurate  diagnosis.  It  is  required  by  an  imperious 
inner  law,  that  will  not  leave  to  the  sinner  a  vestige 
of  the  old  prideful  pose  behind  which  he  had  shielded 
iniquity.     The  secret  thing  must  be  exposed  before 


72  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

it  can  be  dealt  with  effectually,  permitting  the 
repentant  sinner  to  go  forward  on  a  new  basis  of 
utter  honesty,  looking  the  whole  world  in  the  face. 
The  clinic  of  the  soul  surgeon  is,  therefore,  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  confessional  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  priest.  Misunderstanding  of  this  fundamen- 
tal difference  brought  much  sincere  criticism  upon  the 
head  of  the  American  clergyman.  Dr.  Chas.  H.  Sheldon 
(author  of  the  book.  What  Would  Jesus  Do?),  when 
he  was  widely  quoted  as  declaring  that  every  Christian 
Church  should  have  its  confessional,  that  every  clergy- 
man should  know  how  to  act  as  confessor  to  the 
sinning  soul.  If  he  had  used  the  word  "clinic,"  which 
is  the  physician's  confessional,  he  would  probably  have 
avoided  the  criticism.  The  Roman  Catholic  confes- 
sional is  a  mechanical  device,  serving  as  a  means  by 
which  the  priest  can  become  cognizant  of  the  sins  of 
professing  Christians  and  prescribe  the  appropriate 
penance,  without  knowing  the  identity  of  the  con- 
fessing party.  The  Protestant  confessional  is  the 
innermost  shrine  of  Christian  friendship,  whose  essence 
and  glory  lies  in  self-revelation.  Nevertheless  the 
Roman  Catholic  priest,  whose  experimental  knowledge 


SOUl  -  SURGERY  73 

of  men  often  puts  to  shame  the  Protestant  clergyman, 
truly  understands  the  value  and  need  of  the  confession 
of  sin. 

One  of  the  finest  passages  in  Principal  Smith's 
biography  of  Drummond  is  the  following,  in  the 
introductory  chapter,  entitled:  "As  We  Knew  Him": 
**As  we  shall  see,  soon  after  he  had  read  to  his 
fellow-students  his  paper  on  'Spiritual  Diagnosis,'  in 
which  he  blamed  the  lack  of  personal  dealing  as  the 
great  fault  of  the  organised  religion  of  his  time,  he 
was  drawn  to  work  in  the  inquiry  rooms  of  the  revival 
of  1873-75.  And  in  these  he  dealt,  face  to  face,  with 
hundreds  of  men  and  women  at  the  crisis  of  their 
lives.  When  that  work  was  over,  his  experience,  his 
fidelity  and  his  sympathy  continued  to  be  about  him, 
as  it  were  the  walls  of  a  quiet  and  healing  confessional, 
into  which  wounded  men  and  women  crept  from  the 
world,  dared  'To  unlock  the  heart  and  let  it  speak' — 
dared  to  tell  the  worst  about  themselves.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  no  man  in  our  generation  can  have  heard 
confession  more  constantly  than  Drummond  did. 
And  this  responsibility,  about  which  he  was  ever  as 
silent  as  about  his  own  inner  struggles,  was  a  heavy 
burden  and  a  sore  grief  to  him.    If  some  of  the  letters 


74  SOUL  -  SU RGBRY 

he  received  be  specimens  of  the  confidence  poured  into 
his  ears,  we  can  understand  him  saying,  as  he  did  to 
one  friend:  ''Such  tales  of  woe  I've  heard  in  Moody's 
inquiry  room  that  I  have  felt  I  must  go  and  change 
my  very  clothes  after  the  contact";  or  to  another, 
when  he  had  come  from  talking  privately  with  some 
students :  *'0,  I  am  sick  with  the  sins  of  these  men ! 
How  can  God  bear  it !"  And  yet  it  is  surely  proof  of 
the  purity  of  the  man  and  of  the  power  of  the  Gospel 
he  believed  in  that,  thus  knowing  the  human  heart, 
and  bearing  the  full  burden  of  men's  sins,  he  should 
nevertheless  have  believed  (to  use  his  own  words)  *in 
the  recoverableness  of  a  man  at  his  worst,'  and  have 
carried  with  him  wherever  he  went  the  air  of  health 
and  of  victory."* 

It  is  encouraging  to  note  how  the  need  for  such 
confessional-clinics  as  we  have  been  advocating  is  be- 
ing realized  increasingly  in  the  church  in  the  West. 
The  church  news  page  of  a  denominational  paper 
told  recently  of  the  ministry,  just  terminated,  of  a 
leading  Canadian  pastor,  who  had  established  an  office 
in  the  premises  of  his  church  in  Toronto,  where  he 
kept  daily  office  hours  from  nine  until  four.  He 
received  a  continual  stream  of  callers,  including  many 
*  Smith:  Life  of  Drummond,  pp.  10,  11. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  75 

young  men  and  women  from  the  British  Isles,  to 
whom  he  gave  counsel  and  help.  This  he  called  his 
"Moral  Clinic."  No  doubt  there  was  a  more  intimate 
connection  than  many  would  realise  between  the  clinic 
and  the  fact  stated  in  another  paragraph,  that  this 
pastor  had  "a  Sunday  evening  audience  of  1,500."  He 
was  telling  his  people  on  Sunday  the  cure  for  what 
had  been  coming  to  him  all  the  week,  of  temptation 
and  sin  and  sorrow,  from  burdened,  yearning  hearts. 

A  more  pretentious  effort  in  this  direction  which 
emphasises  the  close  connection  between  physical  and 
spiritual  clinical  work,  has  been  the  original  experi- 
ment in  Emmanuel  Church,  Boston,  which  has  now 
passed  the  experimental  stage  and  proved  its  prag- 
matic right  to  permanency.  More  than  ten  years  ago 
the  pastors  of  this  church,  Drs.  Worcester  and 
McComb,  determined  to  appropriate  some  of  the 
power  of  Christian  science,  without  its  bad  philosophy 
and  theology,  by  bringing  into  the  foreground  the  fig- 
ure of  the  Healing  Christ — healer  of  the  sick  bodies 
and  minds  and  souls  of  men.  With  surprising  rapid- 
ity the  prayer  meeting  grew  from  a  few  score  to  many 
hundreds.  Great  audiences  soon  filled  the  church  on 
Sundays.    The  establishment  of  a  week-day  clinic  was 


76  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

found  to  be  necessary,  in  which  a  well-known  physi- 
cian  was   associated   with   the  two   clergymen,   who 
themselves  took  special  training  in  the  treatment  of 
nervous  disorders.     I    visited   this    famous    clinic   in 
1908.     All  about  the  premises  of  the  church  (proper 
arrangement  not  having  then  been  made)  were  ailing 
people,  who  had  come  from  all  parts  of  the  eastern 
states.     I  remember  talking  with  one  elderly  woman, 
who  had  been  sent  from  Philadelphia  by  the  famous 
nerve  specialist  and  novelist,  Dr.   S.   Wier  Mitchell. 
Each  patient  was  directed  first  to  the  medical  mem- 
ber of  the  trio  for  a  thorough  physical  examination. 
Later  he  was  accorded  a  searching  interview  with  Dr. 
Worcester  or  Dr.  McComb,  who  had  already  seen  the 
physical  diagnosis  and  could  then  prescribe  treatment 
based  on  all  the  facts  revealed.    This  experiment  was 
watched  with  great  interest  by  both  clergymen  and 
physicians,  and  has  certainly  pointed  the  way  to  a  far 
closer  co-operation  between  doctors  of  the  body  and 
of  the  soul  in  years  to  come. 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  thinking  of  the  con- 
fession that  is  made  to  a  single  friendly  ear.  We 
must  now  consider  the  question  of  the  public  confes- 
sion, which  is  sometimes  as  necessary  as  the  other. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  77 

Every  genuine  revival  furnishes  fresh  evidence  of  the 
value  of  this  factor  in  religious  experience,  and  it  fre- 
quently illustrates  also  the  concomitant  danger  tha^ 
the  tendency  to  confession  may  run  to  unwholesome 
lengths.  The  value  of  this  element,  when  carefully 
safeguarded,  was  repeatedly  shown  in  the  early  stages 
of  the  present  widespread  movement  of  personal 
evangelism  in  China.  I  was  myself  a  witness  of  most 
of  the  instances  of  confession  given  in  the  following 
quotation  from  an  article  written  by  Pastor  Chang 
Cheng  Yi,  secretary  of  the  China  Continuation  Com- 
mittee, one  of  the  most  attractive  and  powerful 
Christian  leaders  I  have  met  in  China  or  elsewhere: 
"At  one  of  Mr.  Buchman's  meetings  a  pastor  was  led 
by  the  Spirit  of  God  to  make  public  confession  of  his 
failure  as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel.  There  and  then 
he  walked  across  the  meeting  hall  toward  one  of  the 
elders  of  his  church  with  whom  he  had  not  been  on 
good  terms  for  the  long  period  of  seven  years,  and 
publicly  asked  him  for  forgiveness.  He  declared  that 
while  there  was  wrong  on  both  sides,  his  was  the 
greater.  A  church  quarrel  existed  for  some  years 
between  the  pastors  of  a  certain  mission.  Disagree- 
ment  in   opinion    regarding   certain    things    was    the 


78  SOUl  -  SURGBRY 

beginning  of  the  trouble.  Ill  feeling,  however,  grew 
from  bad  to  worse,  and  there  existed  unfriendliness 
and  even  hatred.  But  the  warmth  of  God's  love  can 
melt  the  coldness  of  men's  hearts.  After  publicly  con- 
fessing their  sins,  they  shook  each  other's  hands,  as 
a  token  of  restored  friendship.  A  lady  missionary 
with  intense  earnestness  requested  her  fellow-workers 
to  pray  with  her  for  those  members  of  her  family  who 
were  not  yet  won  for  Christ.  Her  intense  passion  for 
souls  moved  the  hearts  of  all  who  were  present  at  that 
hillside  gathering.  She  is  a  great  power,  and  through 
her  many  have  been,  and  are  being,  blessed.  One  other 
young  missionary,  when  inspired  by  God's  Spirit,  bold- 
ly confessed  the  failures  in  his  work  for  Christ.  He 
said  that  there  was  no  power  in  his  work,  and,  to 
use  Mr.  Buchman's  word,  no  miracles.  Why?  Be- 
cause egotism,  unkindliness,  and  other  things  had 
come  between  himself  and  God.  Now  he  is  a  keen 
soul-winner,  and  is  never  so  happy  as  when  he  is 
speaking  to  some  one  about  his  need  of  Christ.  He 
is  in  real  earnest,  and  means  business.  The  Spirit  of 
God  was  certainly  working  in  the  hearts  of  the  semi- 
nary students  when  they  stood  up  and  confessed  their 
sins  before  the  whole  school.     One  of  the  students 


SOUL,  -  SURGURY  79 

had  been  the  preacher  in  a  large  church  in  the  south 
for  eight  years  before  he  joined  the  college.  He  care- 
fully prepared  a  long  letter  which  he  intends  to  send 
to  his  former  congregation  confessing  the  failure  of 
his  ministry.  Among  other  things  he  frankly  tells 
them  that  during  all  those  eight  years  he  could  not 
name  one  single  person  that  was  won  for  Christ 
through  him,  and  he  further  declared  that  he  was  so 
deeply  interested  in  institutional  and  other  kinds  of 
work  that  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his  congregation 
was  not  properly  cared  for.  He,  therefore,  asked  their 
forgiveness.  For  a  young  man  to  say  these  things 
before  the  whole  school  and  church  certainly  required 
an  unusual  amount  of  courage."* 

The  above-mentioned  occurrences  took  place  in 
widely  scattered  cities  of  China,  in  small,  quiet  gath- 
erings where  there  was  no  unnatural  excitement — 
only  the  manifest  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  I 
should  like  to  give  one  further  example  of  the  potential 
importance  of  public  confession,  within  the  range  of 
my  own  observation,  which  made  a  lifelong  impression 
upon  me.    In  one  of  the  large  eastern  universities  of 

"  "Miracles,"   by   C.   Y.   Cheng,   in   The   Chinese  Recorder 
December,  1917. 


80  SOUL  -  SURGURY 

the  United  States,  one  of  the  most  active  Christian 
students,  a  Bible  class  teacher  and  a  Student  Volun- 
teer, had  been  struggling  vainly  for  three  years  to 
break  the  bonds  of  a  certain  secret  sin  that  held  him 
in  a  vice-like  grip.  Several  friends,  to  whom  he  final- 
ly revealed  his  trouble,  joined  with  him  in  prayer, 
daily  for  a  long  period,  and  still  he  could  not  gain  a 
complete  victory,  and  the  long,  losing  struggle  was 
having  its  effect  in  departments  of  his  life.  At  his 
last  student  summer  conference,  following  graduation, 
after  a  trenchant  address  on  sin  by  Dr.  John  R.  Mott, 
this  man,  with  many  others,  determined  to  claim  the 
power  of  Christ,  once  for  all,  "to  break  the  power  of 
cancelled  sin,  and  set  the  prisoner  free."  Then  God's 
Spirit  showed  him  what  he  must  do.  At  the  final 
delegation  meeting  of  his  university,  as  each  man 
around  the  large  circle  rose  and  told  what  the  confer- 
ence had  meant  to  him,  this  man  rose,  in  his  turn, 
and,  before  the  room  full  of  his  fellow  students, 
confessed  his  sin  and  asked  for  their  prayers  that  he 
might  be  saved  and  kept  from  ever  again  succumbing 
to  its  power.  It  was  one  of  the  most  morally  courage- 
ous acts  I  ever  witnessed  and  can  hardly  have  been 
forgotten  by  any  man  there,  and  it  proved  to  be  the 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  8i 

begininng  of  a  life  of  real  victory  and  power  for  this 
man,  who  is  today  a  very  successful  missionary  in  a 
foreign  land. 

Only  God  can  show  a  man  when  and  where  he  must 
confess;  and  only  He  can  show  the  personal  worker 
when  he  ought  to  press  for  a  confession.  When  he  is 
certain  that  the  need  for  confession  exists,  the  soul 
surgeon  must  be  lovingly  relentless  in  insisting  that 
the  confession  be  made,  when  and  where  it  is  needed. 
It  is  often  the  kind  of  drastic,  spiritual  operation 
which  alone  can  prevent  a  superficial  repentance  and 
unreal  conversion.  In  New  York  City,  last  winter, 
a  university  student  leader  came  to  talk  with  Mr. 
Buchman  about  entering  the  Christian  ministry.  He 
had  just  been  attending  a  conference  on  the  ministry, 
at  which  the  brilliant  addresses  had  interested  but  had 
not  convinced  him.  He  was  full  of  questions  and  of 
longing  for  the  personal  interview  for  w^hich,  as  so 
often,  the  conference  committee  had  made  no  adequate 
provision.  Mr.  Buchman  answered  his  questions  on 
the  ministry  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  but  still  the  man 
seemed  unsatisfied.  They  had  finished  dinner  with 
little  accomplished,  and  Mr.  Buchman  then  invited 
him  to  his  room  for  further  conversation.   In  time  the 


82  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

student  opened  up  a  little  more,  and  said:  "I'll  tell 
you  why  I  couldn't  enter  the  ministry.  I  want  my  own 
way  too  much."  ''Isn't  there  anything  else?"  Mr. 
Buchman  asked,  and  the  student  said  ''No."  Then 
Mr.  Buchman  was  "told  what  he  should  speak,"  as 
suspicion  became  conviction ;  and  leaning  forward  he 

said  earnestly  to  the  man :     "Isn't  your  trouble " 

The  barrier  of  pride  crumbled  away,  the  man  burst 
into  tears,  and  a  new  beginning  was  made  of  a  sure 
foundation,  which  transformed  the  young  man  into  a 
genuine  personal  worker  and  decided  finally  his 
problems  concerning  the  ministry.  As  they  were  walk- 
ing together  to  the  underground  railway,  after  their 
talk  was  finished,  the  student  said  (and  it  is  worth 
remembering)  :  "Buchman,  Fd  have  cursed  you  to- 
night if  you  hadn't  got  at  my  real  need." 

In  concluding  this  subject,  it  might  be  well  to 
mention  several  admonitions  which  we  need  to  bear 
in  mind. 

Take  nothing  for  granted.  A  man  may  be  presi- 
dent of  a  Christian  Endeavour  society,  superintendent 
of  a  Sunday  school,  an  elder  or  vestryman  in  a 
church — yes,  the  secretary  of  a  Young  Men"s  Christian 
Association,  a  clergyman  or  a  missionary — and   still 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  83 

stand  in  need  of  moral  surgery.  One  great  lack  in 
what  I  formerly  understood  as  personal  work  was,  that 
it  dealt  only  or  chiefly  with  the  class  theologically 
known  as  "the  lost,"  considered  in  need  of  salvation. 
One  thought  of  the  world  as  divided  into  two  classes — 
the  saved  and  the  unsaved — with  the  boundaries  of 
the  first  class  for  the  most  part  coterminous  with  those 
of  the  visible  church.  One  was  expected  to  ''do 
personal  work"  of  a  vague,  dreary  sort  with  the  latter 
class,  who  seemed  somehow  hopelessly  inaccessable, 
That  was  essentially  the  accepted  division  in  Jesus' 
day — the  professionally  religious  people,  the  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  in  one  class  or  caste,  and  the  "Pub- 
licans and  sinners"  in  the  other.  The  Pharisee 
thanked  God  that  he  was  not  like  "this  Publican," 
whose  prayer  was :  ''God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner." 
Jesus  had  in  mind  this  classification  when  He  said  to 
the  Pharisees,  with  scathing  irony :  'T  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repentance."  There- 
upon He  showed  clearly  which  of  the  two  classes  He 
considered  to  be  in  direct  need  of  spiritual  surgery, 
when  He  so  excoriated  the  self -righteousness  of  the 
Pharisees  that  the  name  "Pharisee"  has  taken  its 
place  in  our  language  as  synonymous  with  a  canting 


84  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

hypocrite.  Certainly  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and 
the  Publican  is  full  of  arresting  significance  for  those 
of  us  today  who  belong  to  the  professionally  religious 
class,  the  members  of  Christ's  Church  on  earth. 

There  is  one  infallible  test  by  which  we  must  be 
judged,  and  it  is  indicated  by  two  verses  of  Scripture: 
"If  any  man  hath  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is  none 
of  His,"  and  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 
We  are  told  what  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  are  in  Gala- 
tians  5 :  22,  23 :  "But  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love, 
joy,  peace,  longsuffering,  kindness,  goodness,  faithful- 
ness, meekness,  self-control;  against  such  there  is  no 
law."  The  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  we  know,  was  one 
of  redemptive,  holy  love,  expressed  in  the  continuous 
faithful  effort  to  bring  men,  one  by  one,  into  vital 
relation  with  the  living  God.  If  we  are  not  true  sharers 
in  His  purpose  and  programme  today,  can  we  claim  to 
possess  His  Spirit  and  to  be  worthy  of  bearing  His 
name?  Is  it  not,  then,  a  fair  corollary  to  the  above 
that  if  a  man's  life  is  not  bringing  forth  fruit  some- 
where, according  to  his  opportunity,  in  intensive, 
evangelistic  effort,  there  is  somthing  wrong  with  his 
spiritual  life,  judged  by  the  lofty  standards  of  Jesus? 
Would  we  not,  therefore,  be  wise  to  discard  for  prac- 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  85 

tical  purposes,  the  old  classification  of  ''the  saved," 
and  ''the  unsaved,"  and  divide  men  rather  into  the 
two  classes,  suggested  by  the  Master,  of  the  morally 
whole  and  the  morally  sick — those  that  are  and  those 
that  are  not  living  a  normal,  glowing,  contagious,  re- 
ligious life,  owned  and  inspired  by  the  spirit  and 
passion  of  Christ?  While  no  one  of  us  dare  attempt 
to  judge  his  brothers,  the  very  emphasis  on  that  truth 
will  bring  its  own  conviction  to  souls  that  are  not  in 
a  condition  of  radiant  health.  This,  surely,  is  one  of 
the  lessons  of  the  parable  of  the  Last  Judgment.  The 
separation  of  the  sheep  and  the  goats  is  according  to 
a  principle  that  takes  account  not  of  the  profession  but 
of  the  practice  of  Jesus'  religion  of  loving,  fruitful 
service.  Our  first  business  at  this  point  is  to  discover 
through  the  lips  of  the  patient  whether  there  is  a  sin 
hitherto  unconfessed  and  unforgiven,  by  which  the 
soul  has  been  insulated  from  contact  with  the  life- 
giving  power  of  Christ.  Our  second  task  may  be  to 
assist  in  the  removal  of  such  a  hindrance,  however 
costly  and  difficult  the  process  shall  prove  to  be. 

Never  betray  an  appearance  of  shocked  surprise. 
Such  an  attitude  will  assuredly  dry  up  confidence  at 
the   roots,   and   militate   against   any   continuance   of 


86  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

friendly  service  on  our  part.     It  usually  results  from 

inexperience  on  the  personal  worker's  side,  for  the 

wider  his  knowledge  of  the  real  world  of  men  and 

events  the  less  is  he  likely  openly  to  stand  aghast 

(however  deeply  pained  in  spirit)    at    any    of    the 

revelations  that  may  be  necessary  to  lay  bare  before 

him  the  inner  life  of  his  patient.     Of  all  men  who 

know   sin  vicariously  and  redemptively,  the   Roman 

Catholic  priest,  as  a  rule,  knows  it  best  because  the 

confessional  has  bared  it  to  him  in  its  widest  range 

and    grimmest    realism.      In    Chesterton's    detective 

story,     The    Blue     Cross,    the    desperate     criminal, 

Flambeau,  marvels  at  the  knowledge  of  the  criminal 

world  possessed  by  Father  Brown.     The  priest  asks 

him :    "Has  it  never  strtrck  you  that  a  man  who  does 

next  to  nothing  but  hear  men's  real  sins  is  not  likely 

to  be  wholly  unaware  of  human  evil?"*    What  about 

our  Protestant  confessional  of  redemptive  friendship? 

Have  we  felt  for  ourselves  Drummond's  experience, 

quoted  above,  of  wishing  to  wash  our  hands  and  change 

our  clothes,  at  times,  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  clinging 

influence  of  the  sickening  revelations  that  have  poured 

into  our  ears  ? 

*  Chesterton:     The    Innocence    of    Father    Brown,    p.  19. 
Cassell  &  Co.,  London. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  87 

We  are  charged  to  be  ''in  the  world,  but  not  of 
it."  The  trouble  with  too  many  of  us  Christians  is 
that  we  are  neither  in  nor  of  the  world,  but  are  living 
an  in-growing,  religious  life  in  a  spiritual  hot-house 
of  our  own  creation,  apart  from  and  largely  ignorant 
of  the  sinning  world  that  Jesus  came  to  save,  and 
sent  His  followers  to  leaven.  We  are  too  much  like 
the  person  referred  to  in  the  illustration  used  in  India 
by  Professor  George  Hare  Leonard,  in  1915-16,  in  the 
course  of  his  lectures  on  Social  Service.  This  individ- 
ual, on  hearing  a  child  crying  piteously  in  the  cold, 
stormy  street  outside,  rose  and  closed  the  window — 
to  shut  out  the  sound.  Since  the  suffering  of  others  is 
troublesome  to  us,  and  their  sins  are  revolting,  the 
way  of  self-indulgence  is  to  shut  them  away  from 
our  ken  as  far  as  that  is  possible.  How  different  was 
the  example  of  Jesus,  who  perfectly  fulfilled  th^  ideal 
of  the  suffering  servant  of  Jehovah,  forseeri  by 
Isaiah — the  ideal  which  every  Christian  must  seek 
to  make  his  own:  "Surely  He  hath  borne  our  griefs 
and  carried  our  sorrows;  yet  we  did  esteem  Him 
stricken,  smitten  of  God  and  afflicted.  But  He  was 
wounded  for  our  transgressions.  He  was  bruised  for 
our   iniquities;   the  chastisement   of   our   peace   was 


88  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

upon  Him,  and  with  His  stripes  we  are  healed" 
(Isaiah  53:  4,  5).  The  only  certain  way  really  to 
come  to  know  the  human  life  that  is  surging  around 
us,  in  all  its  aspects  of  light  and  shade,  so  as  to  be 
lifted  above  the  possibility  of  betraying  disastrous 
surprise,  is  through  intensive  personal  work.  The 
confessions  we  thus  receive  will  give  us  cross  sections 
of  typical  lives  wherein  are  involved  and  exposed 
whole  areas  of  the  life  around  about  us,  in  which  sin 
and  suffering  and  sorrow  are  rife. 

Be  ready  to  confess  your  own  shortcomings 
honestly  and  humbly.  Nothing  will  more  surely 
obviate  an  appearance  of  self-righteousness  in  the 
spiritual  physician  than  his  own  confession  of  where 
he  too  fell  before  the  onslaughts  of  temptation,  and 
found  in  the  power  and  presence  of  Christ  salva- 
tion and  security.  And  often  nothing  else  will  break 
through  the  barrier  of  pride  behind  which  the  patient 
is  shielding  his  sin.  An  illustration  of  this  comes 
to  my  mind,  which  occurred  at  a  conference  in  China 
in  the  summer  of  1917.  There  was  present  a  certain 
student  in  a  mission  college  for  whom  a  number  of  us 
were  specially  praying,  because  of  his  influence  on  the 
other  students  and  because  we  had  reason  to  believe 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  89 

that  he  was  guilty  of  dishonesty  in  his  college  work 
and  needed  to  confess  and  make  a  new  start.  Yet  the 
confession  would  not  come.  Finally  it  came,  and 
with  it  penitence  and  the  desire  for  a  new  heart, 
when  one  of  his  future  professors,  just  arrived  in 
China,  a  recent  graduate  of  Yale  University,  told  the 
student  how  he  had  himself  once  yielded  to  the  tempta- 
tion of  cheating  in  examinations,  and  how  he  had  been 
brought  to  see  the  way  in  which  that  dishonesty  was 
undermining  his  moral  integrity.  It  was  necessary 
that  the  pride  of  the  professor  as  well  as  that  of  the 
student  should  entirely  melt  away.  In  this  way  God 
often  uses  our  temptations,  and  perhaps  our  early 
failures  and  our  ultimate  victories,  to  make  and  keep 
us  human  in  these  delicate  spiritual  operations  that 
need  to  be  performed.  After  a  personal  work  group 
in  a  China  hill  station,  one  missionary  told  me  how  for 
years  he  had  been  hounded  and  hindered  by  the 
memory  of  dishonesty  in  his  university  examinations, 
a  sin  which  had  never  been  confessed.  He  had  not 
realized  that  once  he  made  things  right  by  proper 
confession  and  any  possible  restitution,  the  very  fact 
of  his  early  weakness  could  be  over-ruled  for  good  by 
the  Divine  Hand,  in  the  course  of  his  work  among 
students  in  China  where,  as  everywhere  else,  that  sin 


90  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

is  so  common.  Men  so  easily  over-exaggerate  their 
sins  by  dwelling  on  them,  until  they  morbidly  imagine 
that  they  are  peculiar  and  unique  in  the  nature  and 
extent  of  their  sins.  We  do  not  need  to  make  light 
of  sin  in  order  to  show  the  patient  that  his  case  is  not 
unique  and  therefore  hopeless.  The  student  in  New 
York  whose  fruitful  interview  with  Mr.  Buchman 
was  mentioned  above,  when  he  had  broken  down  and 
confessed,  sobbed:  ''You'll  never  like  me  again," 
and  he  was  immeasurably  helped  at  once  by  being 
told  how  many  other  cases  of  secret  sin  exactly  like  his 
Mr.  Buchman  had  dealt  with  that  very  week.  I 
remember  in  my  own  case  the  feeling  almost  of 
elation,  after  deep  depression,  that  came  to  me  as  a 
student  when  I  sought  help  from  a  Christian  worker 
whom  1  vastly  admired,  and  learned  from  him  that  he 
had  fought  through  my  very  fight.  It  spurred  me  on 
toward  victory  as  nothing  else  could  have  done. 

Regarding  the  use  which  God  can  make  of  our 
consciousness  and  confession  of  our  own  failures,  we 
have  the  testimony  of  Rev.  Howard  Agnew  Johnson, 
whose  Studies  for  Personal  Workers  have  helped 
thousands  in  many  lands:  "In  the  Christian  the 
consciousness  of  limitations  will  ever  tend  to  prevent 
boastfulness.    The  one  fact  which  helps  most  here  is 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  91 

that  God  expects  every  man  to  reveal  Christ.     By  so 

much  as  I  ask  myself  how  far  I  am  revealing  Christ,  I 

am  emptied  of  self-exaltation  by  the  consciousness  of 

a  pitiful  failure."*       "Any    intimation   of    a    feeling 

of  superiority  on  the  part  of  a  Christian  is  fatal  to  his 

influence  with  one  who  is  not,  especially  in  view  of 

the  fact  that  any  such  spirit  is  always  unjustifiable. 

To  go  with  a  confession  of  unworthiness  is  not  only 

consistent,  but  it  tends  to  disarm  criticism     .... 

Hence,   when   approaching   him,   it   is   always   safest 

and  generally   helpful   to  begin   by   confessing  one's 

own  sense  of  unworthiness,  and  then  add  a  confession 

of  faith  and  hope  in  Christ  as  one  who  is  most  precious 

and  helpful  to  you,  and,  therefore,  to  all  who  will 

accept  Him."t 

We  shall  not  go  far  wrong  if  our  attitude  toward 

the  man   we   wish   to  help   is   that   recommended   in 

Frederick  Lawrence  Knowle's  poem,  "The  Discipline 

of  Failure" : 

"Thus  believing,  I  have  come  to  love  you. 
All  who  climb  with  me   from  self  to   freedom. 
Let  me  kiss  thy  lips.  O  fallen  brother! 
Let  my  arms  enfold  thee,  fallen  sister! 
Let  me  trust  and  love  you  back  to  honour, 
Let  me  draw  you  to  the  Great  Forgiveness, 

^  *  Johnson :  Studies  for  Personal  Workers,  p.  37.     Associa- 
tion Press,  New  York. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  79. 


92  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

Not  as  one  above  who  stoops  to  save  you, 
Not  as  one  who  stands  aside  with  counsel, 
Nay,  as  he  who  says,  I,  too,  was  poisoned 
With  the  flowers  that  sting,  but  now,  arisen 
I  am  struggling  up  the  path  beside  you ; 
Rise !  and  let  us  face  these  heights  together."* 

We  need  likewise  to  remember  that  the  value  of 
public  (as  well  as  private)  confession  of  sin,  when  it 
is  in  response  to  the  proved  leading  of  God's  Spirit, 
does  not  only  arise  from  the  effect  upon  the  one  who 
thus  confesses.  There  is  also  to  be  considered  the 
effect  upon  those  who  hear.  Many  changed  lives  in 
China  this  past  year  have  resulted  from  the  confession 
by  Mr.  Buchman,  to  small  groups,  of  how  for  a  whole 
year,  he  did  not  win  one  soul  to  Christ  because  he  was 
harbouring  a  feeling  of  resentment  toward  a  group 
of  men,  who,  he  knew,  had  wronged  him.  Finally,  a 
sermon  that  he  heard  at  Keswick,  England,  moved 
him  to  write  six  letters  to  the  men  who  had  wronged 
him,  asking  their  forgiveness  of  his  uncharitable  atti- 
tude toward  them.  At  the  top  of  each  letter  he  wrote 
the  verse: 

"When  I  survey  the  wondrous  Cross, 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died. 
My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 
And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride.** 

*  Knowles :  Love  Triumphant,  pp.  92,  93.  Dana,  Estes  &  Co., 
Boston. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  93 

We  may  be  sure,  then,  that  if  we  are  honest  and 
humble  and  truthful,  God  will  keep  us  human  and 
sympathetic,  and  may  be  able  to  use  our  very  weak- 
nesses and  temptations,  over-ruled  by  His  grace,  to 
His  everlasting  honour  and  glory. 

Finally,  keep  every  confidence  absolutely  sacred. 
This  counsel  may  seem  superfluous  because  the  need 
of  observing  it  is  so  obvious  and  yet  we  often  do  not 
realise  how  easily  we  may  let  slip  a  remark  about 
some  person  into  whose  confidence  we  have  come, 
which  may  reveal  to  another  more  than  we  think. 
The  professional  honour  of  the  physician  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  here,  as  every  Roman  Catholic 
priest  is  compelled  to  learn.  Unless  people  come  to 
feel  an  entire  reliance  on  our  discretionary  silence 
they  assuredly  will  not  trust  us.  Many  a  potential 
personal  worker  is  severely  handicapped  because  he 
(or  she)  has  never  acquired  this  great  and  costly  gift 
of  silence.  They  may  need  to  pray  not  now  for  a 
new  heart,  but  for  a  new  tongue.  Weymouth  trans- 
lates a  phrase  in  the  seventh  verse  of  the  thirteenth 
chapter  of  First  Corinthians,  referring  to  true  love: 
"She  knows  how  to  he  silent"  It  is  a  noble  and 
rare  achievement.     The  moral  surgeon  must  be  one 


94  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

who  is  the  complete  master  of  his  tongue,  a  man  of 
studied  silences  and  large  reserves  of  knowledge. 
True  personal  workers  must  have  overcome  the  insidi- 
ous temptation  to  criticism  among  Christians  to  which, 
when  they  yield,  they  inevitably  wall  themselevs  away 
from  those  whom  they  ought  to  serve.  Our  business 
is  not  to  circulat  e  the  salacious  bit  of  scandal  we 
happen  to  have  heard,  but  to  destroy  it  by  tracing 
out  and  cleaning  up  the  source.  Our  business  is  not 
the  common,  destructive  one  of  pointing  out  to  the 
world  in  general  the  weaknesses  in  our  fellow-men, 
but  it  is  the  constructive  task  of  the  human  engineer — 
to  strengthen  and  correct,  and  hence  conserve.  If 
men  have  found  that  we  are  accustomed  to  speak 
carelessly  and  ungenerously  of  others  they  will  not 
seek  us  out  when  in  need  of  confidential  help.  Truly, 
as  St.  James  wrote :  "The  tongue  can  no  man  tame ; 
it  is  a  restless  evil,  it  is  full  of  deadly  poison" 
(Jas  3:7).  Weymouth  renders  "a  restless  evil"  more 
vividly,  "an  ever-busy  mischief."  More  specific  is  the 
author  of  the  proverb:  "A  worthless  man  deviseth 
mischief;  and  in  his  lips  there  is  a  scorching  fire." 
"A  perverse  man  scattereth  abroad  strife;  and  a 
whisperer  separateth  chief  friends."     (Prov.  16:  27, 


SOUL-SURGERY  95 

28).  The  "whisperer"  will  not  receive  men's  confi- 
dence because  they  know  he  cannot  keep  it.  He  can 
only  become  certain  of  keeping  it,  and  hence  deserve 
to  receive  it,  when  he  has  appropriated  the  power  of 
Christ  to  master  and  guide  the  truant  tongue  that  no 
one  of  himself  can  tame. 

When  we  pause  to  criticise  our  own  confidence- 
destroying  criticism  of  others  we  usually  discover  that 
it  is,  at  least  presumptively,  not  altogether  true  or 
just.  I  often  find  it  helpful  to  call  to  mind  a  little 
verse,  learned  long  ago,  of  which  1  never  knew  the 
author : 

"Could  we  but  draw  back  the  curtains    that    surround    each 

other's  lives, 
See  the  naked  heart  and  spirit,  know  what  spur  the  action 

gives — 
Often  we  should  find  it  better,  purer,   than  we  think   we 

should : 
We  should  love  each  other  better  if  we  only  understood." 

When  those  closed  curtains  are  drawn  aside  for 

us  by  a  hand  from  within,  and  we  are  permitted  to 

enter  the  innermost  chamber  of  another  life,  we  are 

sure  to  find  many  surprises,  and  to  be  rebuked  for  our 

former   shallow  and  biased   judgments.      From   that 

time  forth  must  our  lips  be  sealed  by  love,  and  our 

hearts  be  bound  over  to  prayer  and  faith  and  redemp- 


96  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

tive  friendship.  I  will  close  this  section  with  another 
quotation,  of  unknown  derivation,  which  I  may  not 
give  quite  correctly.  It  prescribes  the  safest  attitude 
for  us  to  assume  habitually  toward  those  of  our 
neighbors,  past  the  curtains  of  whose  lives  we  have 
not  seen:  "No  one  may  look  across  where  another 
soul  moves  on  a  quick,  straight  path  and  say  the  way 
is  easier  for  the  other.  No  one  can  see  if  the  rocks  are 
cutting  his  friend's  feet.  No  one  can  know  what 
burning  lands  he  has  crossed  to  follow,  to  be  so  close 
to  his  Angel,  his  Messenger.  Believe  always  that 
every  other  life  has  been  tempted,  more  tried  than 
your  own.  Believe  that  the  lives  higher  and  better 
than  yours  are  so,  not  through  more  ease  but  more 
effort.  Believe  that  the  lives  lower  than  yours  are  so 
through  more  temptation,  more  trial.  Believe  that 
your  friend  with  peace  in  his  heart  has  won  it,  not 
happened  on  it,  that  he  has  fought  your  very  fight." 


3. 

Conviction 

This  stage  is  as  closely  related  to  Confession  as 
Confession  is  to  Confidence.  It  may  come  simultan- 
eously with,  or  it  may  precede  confession,  but  that  con- 
fession of  sin  is  not  conviction  of  sin  any  one  who  has 
worked  among  Indian  students  can  testify.  Some 
measure  of  a  sense  of  sin  is  almost  universal.  Says  K. 
J.  Saunders :  "We  cannot  see  life  steadily  without  be- 
ing oppressed  with  the  awfulness  of  the  burden  of  sin 
— our  own  and  that  of  the  world.  |  We  cannot  think 
of  human  nature  without  being  staggered  by  the 
terrible  contradictions  it  contains;  capable  of  soar- 
ing to  God-like  acts  and  emotions,  man  is  capable 
no  less  of  devilish  lust  and  cruelty:  and  no  one  who 
knows  himself  dare  tell  all  he  knows."*  To  the 
Christian,  conviction  of  sin  means  more  than  this:  it 
means  a  vision  of  the  hideousness  of  his  own  personal 
guilt  in  the  light  of  the  revelation  of  God's  holy  love 
in  Christ.     It  is  the  point  where  a  man  cries  out  to 

*  Saunders :  Adventures  of  the  Christian  Soul,  p.  98.    Cam- 
bridge University  Press. 


9S  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

God  with  the  Psalmist,  "Against  Thee,  Thee  only, 
have  I  sinned  and  done  that  which  is  evil  in  Thy 
sight."  It  speaks  in  the  penitent  voice  of  the  Prodi- 
gal, ''Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven  and  in 
thy  sight,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  thy 
son."  It  is  the  recognition  that  sin — in  the  graphic, 
personal  terms  Dr.  Joseph  Parker  used  to  employ — is 
striking  God  in  the  face.  As  Dr.  Glover  brings  out 
in  the  chapter,  'Jesus'  Teaching  upon  Sin,"  in  his 
Jesus  of  History,^  John  the  Baptist  thought  of  sin 
in  relation  to  the  law  of  God ;  Jesus,  in  relation  to  the 
love  of  God — a  far  different  thing.  This  work  of 
bringing  conviction  of  sin  to  a  human  heart  no  man 
can  accomplish.  It  is  the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
of  whom  Jesus  prophesized:  "When  He  is  come  He 
will  convict  the  world  of  sin,  and  of  righteousness  and 
of  judgment"  (John  16:  8).  Is  our  part,  then,  to 
be  that  of  mere  passive  waiting,  when  we  arrive  at  the 
baffling  point  where  there  is  confession  of  sin  with  no 
deep  sense  of  conviction,  leading  to  a  new  birth?  By 
no  means,  there  is  much  that  we  can  do. 

In  the  first  place,  we  can  try  to  help  the  man  to 
see  himself  as  God  sees  him,  to  view  his  own  life,  as 
t  Glover :  The  Jesus  of  History,  p.  57. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  99 

we  would  have  him  view  sin,  sub  specie  aeternitatis, 
from  the  standpoint  of  eternity,  as  the  old  divines 
uesd  to  put  it.  Here  Drummond's  masterly  analysis 
will  help  us  again.  "A  well-known  American  essay- 
ist and  poet  has  told  us  that  the  difficulty  of  analysing 
our  neighbour's  character  arises  from  the  fact  that 
every  man  is  in  reality  a  threefold  man.  When  two 
persons  are  in  conversation,  there  are  really  six  per- 
sons in  conversation.  Thus,  to  put  the  paradox  into 
the  shape  of  an  example,  suppose  that  John  and  Tom 
are  in  conversation,  there  are  three  Johns  and  three 
Toms,  who  are  accounted  for  in  this  way. 

Three  Johns — 

1 .  The  real  John ;  known  only  to  his  Maker. 

2.  John's  ideal  John :  John,  i.e.,  as  he  thinks  him- 
self ;  never  the  real  John,  and  often  very  unlike  him. 

3.  Tom's  ideal  John;  i.e.,  John  as  Tom  thinks 
him :  never  the  real  John :  nor  John's  John,  but  often 
very  unlike  either. 

Three  Toms — 

1.  The  real  Tom. 

2.  Tom's  ideal  Tom. 

3.  John's  ideal  Tom. 


loo  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

In  this  way  when  I  talk  to  another  it  is  not  I  whom 
he  hears  talking,  but  his  ideal  of  me :  nor  do  I  talk  to 
him  as  he  defines  himself,  but  to  my  ideal  of  him. 
Now  that  ideal  will,  without  almost  inconceivable 
care  and  penetration  on  my  part,  be  quite  different  also 
from  his  real  self  as  God  only  knows  him,  so  that  in- 
stead of  speaking  to  his  real  soul,  I  may  possibly  be 
speaking  to  his  ideal  of  his  own  soul,  or,  more  likely, 
to  my  ideal  of  it. 

"From  this  it  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  the 
power  of  soul  analysis  is  a  hard  thing  to  possess  one- 
self of.  It  requires  intense  discrimination  and  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature — much  and  deep  study  of 
human  life  and  character.  The  man  with  whom  you 
speak  being  made  up  of  two  ideals — his  own  and  yours, 
and  one  real — God's,  it  is  one  of  the  hardest  possible 
tasks  to  abandon  your  ideal  of  him  and  get  to  know 
the  real — God's.  Then,  having  known  it  so  far  as 
possible  to  man,  there  remains  the  greatest  difficulty 
of  all — to  introduce  him  to  himself.  You  have  created 
a  new  man  for  him,  and  he  will  not  recognise  him  at 
first.  He  can  see  no  resemblance  to  his  ideal  self ;  the 
new  creature  is  not  such  a  lovely  picture  as  he  would 
like  to  own :  the  lines  are  harshly  drawn,  and  there  is 


SOUL  '  SURGBRY  loi 

little  grace  and  no  poetry  in  it.  But  he  must  be  told 
that  none  of  us  are  what  we  seem;  and  if  he  would 
deal  faithfully  with  himself,  he  must  try  to  see  him- 
self differently  from  what  he  seems.  Then  he  must  be 
led  with  much  delicacy  to  make  a  little  introspection 
of  himself ;  and  with  the  mirror  lifted  to  his  own  soul 
you  read  off  together  some  of  the  indications  which 
are  defining  themselves  vaguely  upon  its  surface. 
Even  in  social  and  domestic  circles  the  difficulty  of 
performing  this  apparently  simple  operation  upon 
human  nature  is  so  keenly  felt  that  scarce  one  friend 
will  be  found  with  a  friendship  true  enough  to  perform 
it  to  another.  And  in  religious  matters  it  will  be  at 
once  conceded  that  the  complexity  of  the  difficulties 
increases  the  problem  a  hundredfold."'^ 

A  second  service  we  may  render  at  this  stage  is  to 
help  a  man  not  only  to  see  himself  as  God  sees  him, 
but  also  to  understand,  if  he  is  young  and  inexperi- 
enced, the  terrible  consequences  of  the  sin  that  is  not 
checked,  perhaps  through  the  medium  of  a  painful 
surgical  operation.  It  was  one  who  knew  sin  in  its 
farthest  reaches  who  used  the  uncompromising 
language  of  Matthew  5  :28,  and  the  verses  following : 
*  Drummond :    The  New  Evangelism,  pp.  270-273. 


I02  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

"And  if  thy  right  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out  and 

cast  it  from  thee :  for  it  is  profitable  for  thee  that  one 

of  thy  members  should  perish  than  that  thy  whole  body 

should  be  cast  into  hell,"     Try  to  make  the  sinner 

realise. 

1.     Sin's  Binding  Power.     The  normal  man,  at 

one  time  or  another,  feels  constrained  to  cry  out  with 

the  Apostle  Paul,  "I  am  unspiritual,  the  slave  bought 

and  sold,  of  sin"   (Romans  7:   14,  Weymouth  trt.)  ; 

or,  with  the  Psalmist,  ''My  sins  are  mightier  than  I" 

(Psalm   65:   3).    Not  only   of   deceit,   but   of   every 

other  sin  are  the  poet's  words  true : 

"Oh  what  a  tangled  web  we  weave 
When  we  first  practice  to  deceive." 

Some  one  has  graphically  stated  in  the  following 
familiar  sentence  the  sequence  which  is  psychologi- 
cally and  Scripturally  accurate,  "Sow  a  thought, 
reap  an  act;  sow  an  act,  reap  a  habit;  sow  a  habit, 
reap  a  character;  sow  a  character,  reap  a  destiny." 
Often  if  a  man  can  be  led  to  see  the  chain  he  is  forg- 
ing, link  by  link,  in  the  habits  he  is  forming,  he  may 
be  arrested  temporarily  and  may  then  be  permanently 
helped.  Says  Fosdick,  in  The  Meaning  of  Faith: 
*'At   the   beginning   sin    always   comes    disguised    as 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  103 

liberty.  Its  lure  is  the  seductive  freedom  which  it 
promises  from  the  trammels  of  conscience  and  the 
authority  of  law.  But  every  man  who  ever  yet  accept- 
ed sin's  offer  of  a  free,  unfettered  hfe,  discovered  the 
cheat.  Free  to  do  the  evil  thing,  to  indulge  the  baser 
moods — so  men  begin,  but  they  end  not  free  to  stop, 
bound  as  slaves  to  the  thing  that  they  were  free  to  do. 
They  have  been  at  liberty  to  play  with  a  cuttle-fish, 
and  now  that  the  first  long  arm  with  its  suckers  grasps 
them,  and  the  second  arm  is  waving  near,  they  are 
not  at  liberty  to  get  away."* 

2.  Sin's  blinding  power.  The  last  phrase  of 
moral  turpitude,  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  is 
present  to  some  extent  in  those  who,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously say,  "Evil,  be  thou  my  good,"  who,  behold- 
ing Satan  masquerading  as  an  angel  of  light,  follow 
after  him  and  reflect  that  unholy  light  in  their  lives.  All 
sin,  we  must  point  out,  is  a  step  toward  moral  myopia. 
It  was  this  confusion  of  standards  in  the  Pharisees 
that  laid  them  open  to  the  stinging  rebukes  of  Jesus. 
Dr.  Glover  has  described  their  condition  in  language 
that  is  worth  quoting  at  length,  for  its  apt  character- 
ization of  a  condition  that  is  all  about  us: 

*  Fosdick :  The  Meaning  of  Faith,  p.  253. 


I04  SOUl  -  SURGERY 

"Jesus  said  that  the  Pharisee  was  never  quite  sure 
whether  the  creature  he  was  looking  at  was  a  camel  or 
a  mosquito — he  got  them  mixed  (Matt.  23:  24). 
Once  we  realise  what  this  tremendous  irony  means, 
we  are  better  able  to  grasp  his  thought.  The  Phari- 
see was  living  in  a  world  that  was  not  the  real  one — it 
was  a  highly  artificial  one,  picturesque  and  charming 
no  doubt,  but  dangerous.  For,  after  all,  we  do  live 
in  the  real  world — there  is  only  one  world,  however 
many  we  may  invent:  and  to  live  in  any  other  is 
danger.  Blindness,  that  is  partial  and  uneven,  lands 
a  man  in  peril  whenever  he  tries  to  come  downstairs 
or  to  cross  the  streets — he  steps  on  the  doorstep  that  is 
not  there  and  misses  the  real  one.  He  is  involved  in 
false  appearances  at  every  turn.  And  so  it  is  in  the 
moral  world — there  is  one  real,  however  many  unreals 
there  are,  and  to  trust  to  the  unreal  is  to  come  to  grief 
on  the  real.  *The  beginning  of  a  man's  doom,' 
wrote  Carlyle,  *is  that  vision  be  withdrawn  from 
him.'  'Thou  blind  Pharisee !'  (Matt.  23:  26).  The 
cup  is  clean  enough  without;  it  is  septic  and  poison- 
ous within,  and  from  which  side  of  it  do  you  drink, 
outside  or  inside?  (Matt.  23:  25).  As  we  study 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  here,  we  see  anew  the  profundity 


SOUL  •  SURGBRY  105 

of  the  saying  attributed  to  Him  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
'The  truth  shall  make  you  free'  (John  8:  32).  The 
man  with  astigmatism,  or  myopia,  or  whatever  else  it 
is,  must  get  the  glasses  that  wall  show  him  the  real 
world,  and  he  is  safe,  and  free  to  go  and  come  as 
he  pleases.  See  the  real  in  the  moral  sphere,  and  the 
first  great  peril  is  gone."'^ 

This  gradual,  tragic  perversion  of  the  moral 
vision,  accompanied  by  a  steady  lowering  of  the  stand- 
ards of  right  and  wrong,  has  never  been  more 
trenchantly  depicted  than  in  Pope's  lines: 

"Vice  is  a  monster  of  such  frightful  mien 
That  to  be  hated  needs  but  to  be  seen  : 
But,  seen  too  often,  familiar  with  her  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 

3.  Sin's  Deadening  Power.  Not  only  does  sin 
bring  confusion  to  a  man's  standards  of  right  and 
wrong,  but  it  brings  callousness  of  heart  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  sin  and  suffering  of  others.  A  good 
touchstone  of  a  man's  integrity  of  character  is  his 
capacity  for  true  moral  indignation  (which  is  rather 
the  suffering  of  disapproving  love  than  the  anger  of 
offended  virtue)  in  the  presence  of  the  sin  and  wrong 
round  about  him.  Can  he  say  with  St.  Paul,  '"'Who 
*  Glover :    The  Jesus  of  History,  p.  163. 


io6  SOUL  '  SURGERY 

is  led  astray  into  sin  and  I  am  not  aflame  with  indigna- 
tion?" (2  Cor.  11:29,  Weymouth  tr.).  Or,  does  he 
now  easily  permit  in  his  own  life  practices  which 
once  grieved  his  spirit  when  he  witnessed  them  in 
others?  If  the  latter  is  the  case  he  must  come  to  see 
that  he  needs,  though  for  deeper  reasons,  the  surgical 
operation  to  which  Stevenson  alludes : 

"If  I  have  faltered  more  or  less 
In  my  great  task  of  cheerfulness, 
If  beams  from  happy  human  eyes 
Have  moved  me  not,  if  morning  skies, 
Books,  and  my  food,  and  summer  rain, 
Knock  on  my  sullen  heart  in  vain: 
Lord,  Thy  most  pointed  pleasure  take, 
And  stab  my  spirit  broad  awake." 

4.  Sin's  Propagating  Power.  Perhaps  the  most 
terrible  consequence  of  sin  is  its  deadly  power  of  pass- 
ing on  its  taint  to  others  in  the  family,  the  community, 
and  even  in  the  next  generation.  Because  of  my  sin 
others  must  suffer  and  others  will  be  led  to  sin.  In 
the  case  of  sexual  immorality  these  social  consequences 
of  sin  are  most  conspicuous,  and  here  such  a  little 
book  as  the  one,  entitled  Life's  Clinic,'^  in  which  the 
suffering  of  the   innocent  is   portrayed  with  ghastly 

*  E.  H,  Hooker :  Life's  Clinic.    Association  Press,  Calcutta, 
1918. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  107 

fidelity  to  the  hideous  truth,  may  be  used  of  God  in 
bringing  about  real  conviction  of  sin.  Here  it  is  quite 
evident  that  not  only  do  we  reap  what  we  sow,  but 
others  must  reap  the  sorrowful  harvest  of  our  *'wild 
oats."  But  this  holds  true  not  only  in  those  sins  we 
are  accustomed  to  call  the  grosser  sins,  but  in  such  no 
less  deadly  and  deadening  society  sins  as  unkind  criti- 
cism, uncontrolled  temper  and  untruthful  language. 

Moreover,  it  may  well  be  that  the  sin  for  which 
others  than  ourselves  must  suffer  is  neither  of  the 
gutter  nor  of  the  drawing-room,  but  of  the  business 
office,  the  bank,  the  factory.  It  seems  as  though  such 
a  book  as  Prof.  E.  A.  Ross'  Sins  of  Society  must 
bring  conviction  of  sin  to  many  a  smug  elder  in  the 
Church  who  has  made  a  fortune  at  the  expense  of  the 
suffering  and  privation  of  others.  Prof.  Walter 
Rauschenbusch  considers  this  type  of  "social  sin"  to 
be  "the  climax  of  sin,"  the  heart  of  man's  rebellion 
against  God.    In  his  most  recent  book,  he  writes : 

''Sin  is  essentially  selfishness.  That  definition  is 
more  in  harmony  with  the  social  gospel  than  with  any 
individualistic  type  of  religion.  The  sinful  mind, 
then,  is  the  un-social  and  anti-social  mind.  To  find 
the  climax  of  sin  we  must  not  linger  over  a  man  who 


io8  SOUL  -  SURGBRY  io8 

swears,  or  sneers  at  religion,  or  denies  the  mystery  of 
the  Trinity,  but  put  our  hands  on  social  groups  who 
have  turned  the  patrimony  of  a  nation  into  the  private 
property  of  a  small  class,  or  have  left  the  peasant 
labourers  cowed,  degraded,  demoralized,  and  without 
rights  in  the  land.  When  we  find  such  in  history,  or 
in  present-day  life,  we  shall  know  we  have  struck  real 
rebellion  against  God  on  the  higher  levels  of  sin."* 

In  the  next  place,  besides  trying  to  help  a  man  to 
see  himself  and  his  sins  as  they  are,  rather  than 
through  such  deceptive  "white  logic"  as  Jack  London 
writes  of  in  John  Barleycorn,  we  shall  be  able  to  help 
him  toward  a  decision  by  the  contagious  power  of  our 
own  example.  Indeed,  this  should  be  our  first  con- 
tribution. "Character  is  caught  not  taught,"  as  Pres. 
King,  of  Oberlin,  so  often  says.  Dr.  Henry  Sloane 
Coffin  puts  it  more  incisively:  "Before  you  can  get 
religion  into  anyone  else  you  must  have  a  contagious 
case  of  it  yourself."  Health  is  contagious  as  well  as 
disease.  In  our  presence  this  sin-haunted  soul  should 
feel  the  spell  of  a  radiant,  victorious  life,  the  very  life 
of  Christ. 

*' Quotation  from  Rauschenbusch :  "A  Theology  for  the 
Social  Gospel"  (Macmillan,  in  Current  Opinion,  March,  1918, 
p.  199). 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  109 

Men  become  conscious  of  the  blackness  of  sin 
when  there  is  present  the  contrast  of  the  white  hoHness 
of  the  character  of  Christ  and  His  redemptive  love. 
Our  lives,  as  well  as  our  lips,  must  show  forth  this 
spirit.  Otherwise  as  Emerson  would  say,  our  lives 
will  speak  so  loud  (in  denial)  that  men  will  not  hear 
what  we  say  (in  affirmation)  of  the  principles  of 
Christ.  Lady  Stanley  has  presented  to  the  Missionary 
Education  Movement  in  New  York  a  letter  written  by 
the  late  Sir  Henry  M.  Stanley,  in  which  the  great  ex- 
plorer tells  how  the  beginning  of  his  real  Christian 
experience  dated  from  his  brief  meeting  with  Living- 
stone in  the  heart  of  Africa.  No  man,  he  said,  could 
be  the  same  after  a  few  days  passed  in  the  company 
of  such  a  character. 

Of  how  many  of  us  is  it  true  that  the  resolving 
of  doubt  and  conviction  of  sin  and  a  new  challenge  to 
higher  living  came  through  a  Christ-filled  personality 
whose  contagion  we  could  not  resist.  Tennyson  said 
that  we  are  a  part  of  all  that  we  have  met,  and  Drum- 
mond  used  to  say  that  he  became  a  part  of  every  man 
he  met,  and  every  man  he  met  became  a  part  of  him. 
The  worth  of  what  we  give  depends  upon  what  we  are. 
The  greatness  of  our  gifts  to  others  is  in  proportion  to 


no  SOUl  -  SURGERy 

the  fulness  of  our  appropriation  of  the  unsearchable 
riches  of  Christ.  How  great  was  Drummond's  gift  to 
every  man  he  met.  He  himself  said:  "What  the 
cause  of  Christ  needs  is  not  so  much  more  of  us  as  a 
better  brand  of  us."*  The  message  of  the  Lambeth 
Conference  of  1908  contained  these  words:  "The 
power  to  witness  for  Christ  depends  on  being  like 
Him.  Men  will  always  learn  of  Christ  from  those 
whom  they  see  living  with  Christlike  simplicity  for 
their  sake."t 

It  is  worth  remembering  that  it  is  through  the 
contagious  interest  of  some  one  else  that  we  enter  into 
most  of  the  rewarding  experiences  of  life.  I  may 
meet  a  man  whose  major  enthusiasm  is  astronomy,  and 
soon  1  am  looking  thfugh  his  telescope  with  such 
interest  in  the  stars  as  I  have  never  conceived  before. 
I  may  hear  a  lecture  on  geology,  and  I  look  with  new 
eyes  upon  the  curious  rock  formations  near  my  home, 
which  before  had  seemed  commonplace  and  unworthy 
of  special  notice.  Or  I  may  hear  an  address  by  a 
missionary  recently  returned  from  Japan,  and  some- 
thing of  the  speaker's  love  for  that  marvellous  race  and 

*  Quoted  in  H.  A.  Johnson's  Studies  for  Personal  Workers, 
p.  20. 

t  Quoted  in  E.  S.  Wood's  Modern  Discipleship,  p.  117. 
Association  Press,  New  York. 


SOUL  -  SURGHRY  m 

his  enthusiastic  desire  that  the  West  shall  give  to  them 
also  its  best — the  religion  of  Jesus — enters  into  my 
own  breast.  Interest  stimulates  interest.  Enthusiasm 
awakens  enthusiasm.  So  it  is  that  a  man  who  has  had 
a  genuine  experience  of  the  power  of  Christ  to  save 
and  keep  from  sin,  to  comfort  in  affliction,  to  arouse 
and  equip  for  unselfish  service,  is  certain  to  quicken 
in  others,  wherever  he  goes,  an  interest  in  things 
religious  and  a  desire  to  possess  the  same  power  and 
enthusiasm. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  truth  is  given  in  the 
autobiographical  pamphlet,  The  Life  that  Wins,  by 
Chas.  Gallaudet  Trumbull,  obtainable  from  the  Sun- 
day School  Times  Company,  Philadelphia.  In  it 
the  son  of  Dr.  H.  C.  Trumbull  tells  of  how  the  ex- 
perience of  a  new  life  of  real  victory  over  sin  came 
to  him  only  after  years  of  unsatisfied  search,  which 
covered  the  period  of  his  earlier  editorship  of  the  ►S'.  S. 
Times,  of  his  writing  a  book  on  Personal  Work,  and 
engaging  in  various  other  Christian  enterprises.  In 
the  presence  of  certain  people  he  felt  that  they  pos- 
sessed something  that  he  lacked,  and  somehow  his 
testimony  did  not  carry  conviction  or  bring  results. 
After   the   change   came,   partly   through    a   visit   to 


112  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

Keswick,  England,  he  tells  how  one  after  another  of 
his  old  friends  were  won  to  Christ,  how  everywhere  he 
went  the  victory  that  he  had  found  in  his  own  life 
proved  to  be  a  contagious,  compelling  influence  in  the 
lives  of  others. 

Finally,  our  main  reliance  at  this  point  must  be 
prayer  and  a  judicious  use  of  the  Christian  Scriptures. 
We  must  not  only  pray  for  a  man,  but  we  must  be  able 
naturally  and  persuasively  to  pray  with  our  man  and 
to  get  him  to  pray  for  himself.  It  is  usually  in  prayer 
that  the  great  illumination  comes  by  which  a  man 
begins  to  feel  both  his  own  incompleteness  and  God's 
greatness,  flowing  around  his  incompleteness,  round 
his  restlessness,  the  divine  rest. 

Let  us  heed  the  advice  of  Forbes-Robinson  in 
Letters  to  His  Friends. 

"Just  try  to  pray  for  some  one  person  committed 
to  your  charge— say  for  half  an  hour  or  an  hour — and 
you  will  begin  really  to  love  him  ....  It  is  quite 
worth  your  while  to  take  practically  a  day  off  some- 
times and  force  yourself  to  pray.  It  will  be  the  best 
day's  work  you  have  ever  done  in  your  life." 

With  regard  to  the  Scriptures,  the  records  of  the 
various  Bible  societies  and  missionary  organizations 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  113 

teem  with  instances  of  conviction  of  sin  brought  about 
by  reading  the  Bible,  without  any  human  agency  or 
interpreter.  Christ  Himself  is  the  great  Convictor  of 
sin,  and  His  own  words,  as  given  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, are  the  most  powerful  weapons  in  the  world 
to  pierce  the  armour  of  self-righteousness  and  self- 
satisfaction.  Two  quotations,  from  The  Vital  Forces 
of  Christianity  and  Islam/^  illustrate  the  application 
of  this  truth  to  the  Muhammadan  world,  and  it  is  no 
less  true  of  sinful  humanity  everywhere. 

Dr.  W.  A.  Shedd,  of  Urumia,  Persia,  writes :  "So 
also  anything  that  will  lead  Moslems  to  read  the 
Scriptures  is  of  great  value.  They,  at  least,  will  have 
many  misconceptions  corrected  and  may  be  led  to 
deeper  inquiry.  The  greatest  attractive  force  is  Christ 
Himself.  No  Moslem  can  speak  of  Him  with  any- 
thing but  reverence,  and  we  can  let  Him  speak  in  His 
words  in  the  Gospels.  The  most  uncompromising 
claims  of  Christianity  are  in  those  words.  Just  so  far 
as  we  can  base  His  claims  on  His  own  words,  we 
make  them  strong.  We  must  present  Him,  as  He 
offered  Himself,  as  the  Light  and  Truth  of  the  world 
and  as  the  Saviour  and  King  of  men." 

*  Oxford  University  Press,  1915,  pp.  67,  235. 


114  SOUL  '  SURGBRY 

We  may  well  conclude  this  section  with  a  quota- 
tion from  the  letter  of  a  missionary  in  China  for  whom 
many  of  these  truths  regarding  personal  work  have  re- 
cently begun  to  live  in  his  life  and  work.  It  is  one  of 
a  number  that  are  quoted  in  Bulletin  No.  11,  on 
Personal  Evangelism,  of  the  China  Continuation  Com- 
mittee's Special  Committee  on  a  Forward  Evangelistic 
Movement : 

*'As  to  individual  work,  I  realise  how  far  I  have 
travelled  in  personal  dealing,  especially  with  erring 
Christians,  when  I  recall  how  amazed  I  was  that  Mr. 
Buchman  could  induce  men  to  tell  him  their  secret 
sins.  My  experiences  of  this  sort  had  been  very  much 
the  reverse  of  confession.  Indignant  denial  was 
usually  followed  by  a  demand  to  know  the  culprit 
who  had  accused  them.  Also  I  had  not  been  able  to 
get  alongside  of  men,  and  share  with  them  my  spirit- 
ual experiences,  in  order  to  enter  the  deeper  places  of 
their  soul,  and  help  where  help  was  needed. 

"It  has  been  my  privilege  and  joy  recently,  in  life 
after  life,  to  break  through  to  the  bedrock  facts  of  the 
heart  and  life.  This  ability  has  not  come  easily,  but 
such  progress  as  I  have  made  has  come  from  the  exer- 
cise  of   the   Christian   virtues  of   courage   and  love. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  115 

Here  is  a  man  who  has  fallen.  His  life  is  empty  of 
Christ,  and  he  has  a  resentment  against  the  Church 
for  looking  askance  at  him.  In  approaching  him  I 
must  believe  that  God  can  speak  quite  distinctly  to 
him,  and  that  he  will  realise  that  he  is  dealing  with 
God;  also  that  God's  most  direct  way  of  speaking  to 
a  man  is  through  another  man.  I  am  eager  to  be 
that  man.  I  go  to  that  man,  convinced  that  God  is 
going  to  speak  to  him  through  me.  I  even  dare  to 
say,  "God  wishes  to  say  this  to  you  through  me." 
In  many  cases  I  have  the  absolute  confidence  that  the 
man  will  be  won,  and  he  usually  is. 

"To  get  his  confidence,  I  have  been  taught  that 
the  only  way  is  to  take  my  place  as  a  fellow  sinner. 
He  has  to  realise  that  I  am  seeking  his  truest  well- 
being,  and  will  not  be  satisfied  till  I  get  to  the  facts. 
The  interview,  of  course,  must  be  private,  and  often 
the  wrestle  comes  after  we  get  down  on  our  knees 
together.  I  have  done  what  I  have  never  done  in  my 
life  before,  and  what  is  foreign  to  my  instincts — put 
my  arm  around  a  man's  shoulder  as  we  prayed  together 
on  our  knees,  until  the  guilt  was  confessed  and  the 
burden  lifted.  The  actual  touch  sometimes  makes  all 
the  difiierence. 


ii6  SOUL  -  SURGURY 

"The  reward  has  been  a  response  in  real  affection 
from  these  men,  and  the  joy  of  seeing  the  welcome 
break  on  the  prodigal's  face.  One  feels  that  one  is 
having  a  great  time  of  it.  It  also  multiplies  one's 
usefulness  more  quickly  than  any  other  way." 


I 


*  Conversion 


We  need  not  linger  long  over  this  crucial  step, 
because  it  is  a  transaction  that  takes  place  altogether 
between  the  soul  and  God,  usually  following  con- 
viction of  sin  and  a  new  sense  of  the  need  of  a  Saviour, 
when  Christ's  salvation  is  recognised  and  appropriated. 
Here  we  can  do  little  except  help  to  centre  on  Christ 
and  His  redeeming  love  and  power,  the  attention 
which  has  been  directed  toward  the  sinful  self  and  its 
needs.  If  the  patient  stopped  at  the  last  stage  he 
would  be  like  a  sick  man  who  mourned  the  magnitude 
(real  or  fancied)  of  his  disease,  but  saw  no  hope  of 
healing.  He  would  become  a  morbid  religious  hypo- 
chondriac. The  burden  of  his  sin  must  fall  from 
his  shoulders,  as  did  that  of  Pilgrim,  and  he  must 
come  to  know  not  only  the  poignant  sorrow  for  his 
sin,  experienced  on  Calvary,  but  also  the  triumphant 
joy  of  the  Resurrection  morning.  The  Christian 
worker  here  needs,  as  Drummond  assures  us,  thor- 
oughly   to    understand    the    rationale    of    conversion. 

*  For  the  best  treatment  of  this  subject,  viewed  in  the  light 
both  of  psychology  and  Christian  experience,  see  Chapters 
IV,  V  and  VI  of  K.  J.  Saunders'  Adventures  of  the  Christimi 
Soul, 


ii8  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

Viewed  from  man's  side,  it  is  an  act  of  faith  in  which 
the  sinner  deHberately  and  finally  turns  from  all 
known  sin  and  identifies  himself  with  Christ,  for  the 
future,  in  a  saving,  victorious  moral  unity  and  fellow- 
ship. Viewed  from  God's  side,  it  is  an  act  of  God's 
free  grace  by  which  He  is  able,  through  bearing  hu- 
man sin — in  suffering  redemptive  love — to  forgive  the 
sinner  and  so  to  effect  in  Christ  a  reconciliation,  a  new 
relationship,  in  which  the  barrier  of  sin  no  longer  re- 
mains. The  result  of  this  two-fold  act  is  a  fundamen- 
tal change,  so  important  that  Jesus  called  it  a  new 
birth  of  the  spirit.  The  modern  religious  psychologist 
uses  strikingly  similar  language,  calling  the  change 
that  occurs  at  conversion  "the  formation  of  a  new  ego." 
Writes  Starbuck:  **It  seems  that  the  heightened 
worth  of  self  and  the  altruistic  impulses  in  conversion 
are  closely  bound  up  together,  and  the  differences  be- 
tween them  lie  simply  in  the  different  content  of  con- 
sciousness, determined  by  the  direction  in  which  it  is 
turned.  The  central  fact  underlying  both  is  the  for- 
mation of  a  new  ego,  a  fresh  point  of  reference  for 
mental  states."* 

In  different  terms,  but  with  a  no  less  clear  recog- 

*  Starbuck's  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  129. 

t  James :  Varieties  of  Religious  Hxperience,  p.  189. 


SOUL.  -  SURGERY  119 

nition  of  the  profound  significance  of  this  crisis  and 
transformation,  WilHam  Jarnes  begins  his  chapter  on 
"Conversion,"  in  the  book  to  which  we  have  already 
alluded.  "To  be  converted,  to  be  regenerated,  to 
receive  grace,  to  experience  religion,  to  gain  an  assur- 
ance, are  so  many  phrases  which  denote  the  process, 
gradual  or  sudden,  by  which  a  self,  hitherto,  divided, 
and  consciously  wrong,  inferior  and  unhappy,  be- 
comes unified  a  nd  consciously  right,  superior  and 
happy,  in  consequence  of  its  firmer  hold  upon  re- 
ligious realities. "t  Later  on  he  writes  concerning  the 
new  centring  of  a  man's  life  interests  after  conver- 
sion. "It  makes  a  great  difference  to  a  man,  whether 
one  set  of  his  ideas,  or  another,  be  the  centre  of 
his  energy;  and  it  makes  a  great  difference,  as  re- 
gards any  set  of  ideas  which  he  may  possess,  whether 
they  become  central  or  remain  peripheral  in  him.  To 
say  that  a  man  is  'converted'  means,  in  these  terms, 
that  religious  ideas,  previously  peripheral  in  his  con- 
sciousness, now  take  a  central  place,  and  that  religious 
aims  form  the  habitual  centre  of  his  energy. "J 

Professor  James'  colleague  at  Harvard,  the  late 
Professor  Royce,  referred  to  this  new  focal  point  of  a 

*  Royce  :    The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  46. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  196. 


I20  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

man's  interests  and  activities  as  a  new  centre  of  loyal- 
ty to  a  great  cause  around  which  all  his  energies 
thenceforth  revolve,  and  which  calls  forth  his  highest 
powers.  He  writes:  **If  you  want  to  find  a  way  of 
living  which  surmounts  doubt  and  centralizes  your 
powers,  it  must  be  some  such  way  as  all  the  loyal  in 
conversion  have  trodden  since  first  loyalty  was  known 
among  men."* 

What  the  new  loyalty  to  Christ  meant  in  the  life 
of  St.  Paul,  a  great  expulsive  power  that  purged  his 
soul  of  all  the  old  pride  and  fanaticism  and  discontent, 
we  read  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Phillipians:  "Yet  all 
that  was  gain  to  me — for  Christ's  sake  I  have  reckoned 
it  loss.  Nay,  I  even  reckon  all  things  as  pure  loss 
because  of  the  priceless  privilege  of  knowing  Christ 
Jesus  my  Lord.  And  for  His  sake  I  have  suffered 
the  loss  of  everything,  and  reckon  it  all  as  mere  refuse, 
in  order  that  I  may  win  Christ  and  be  found  in  union 
with  Him,  not  having  a  righteousness  of  my  own, 
derived  from  the  law,  but  that  which  arises  from 
faith  in  Christ — the  righteousness  which  comes  from 
God  through  faith.  I  long  to  know  Christ  and  the 
power  which  is  in  His  resurrection,  and  to  share  in 
*  Saunders :  Adventures  of  the  Christian  Soul,  pp.  67,  68. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  121 

His  sufferings  and  die  even  as  He  died;  in  the  hope 
that  I  may  attain  to  the  resurrection  from  among  the 
dead/'t 

But  the  question  which  these  psychologists  seem 
unable  to  answer  satisfactorily,  namely,  what  motive 
is  adequate  to  explain  the  phenomena  which  they  have 
so  painstakingly  investigated,  bringing  to  pass  this 
unification  of  the  divided  self,  this  supreme  loyalty,  is 
answered  by  Kenneth  Saunders,  who  has  added  to 
a  thorough  training  in  psychology  a  wide  experience 
in  dealing  with  individual  souls,  illumined  by  true 
devotion  to  Christ.  Conversion,  in  his  eyes,  is  a  ''fall- 
ing in  love."  He  writes :  "The  basis  of  conversion 
is  the  awakening  of  a  new  self,  and  the  vital  element 
in  this  new  birth  is  the  dawning  of  a  new  affection 
which  henceforth  dominates  the  heart.  Conversion 
is,  in  fact,  as  we  have  said,  a  'falling  in  love,'  a  say- 
ing 'Yes'  to  the  'Divine  Lover.'  "*  And  again  he 
writes:  "It  is  this  passion  for  the  Unseen  and  the 
Eternal  which  above  all  else  can  change  the  heart, 
and  strengthen  the  will,  and  illuminate  the  mind. 
Conversion  is  the  birth  of  Love."t 

t  Ibid.,  p.  88. 

t  Phillipians  3:7-11,  Weymouth  tr. 


122  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

With  the  birth  of  this  new  affection  religion  has 
parted  company  with  philosophy,  as  Fosdick  makes 
clear  in  his  Meaning  of  Faith:  ''Religion  begins 
when  the  God  outwardly  argued  is  inwardly  experi- 
enced. Religion  begins  when  we  cease  using  the 
tricky  and  unstable  aeroplane  of  speculation  to  seek 
Him  among  the  clouds,  and  retreat  into  the  fertile 
places  of  our  own  spirits,  where  the  living  water  rises, 
as  Jesus  said.  God  outside  of  us  is  a  theory;  God 
inside  of  us  becomes  a  fact.  God  outside  of  us  is  in 
hypothesis;  God  inside  of  us  is  an  experience.  God 
the  Father  is  the  possibility  of  salvation;  God  the 
Spirit  is  actuality  of  life,  joy,  peace,  and  saving 
power.  God  the  transcendent  may  do  for  philosophy, 
but  he  is  not  enough  for  religion. "i 

Similarly,  Professor  Coe,  of  Union  Seminary, 
writes  of  the  new  sense  of  reality  effected  by  conver- 
sion, in  the  most  recent  contribution  to  the  subject  of 
the  psychology  of  religion. 

''Granted  that  his  training  has  prepared  him  for 

the  crisis,  and  that  conversion  puts  him  under  the 

control  of  existing  social  standards  and  ideas  of  God, 

the  fact  remains  that  conversion  makes  these  things 

t  Fosdick :  Meaning  of  Faith,  p.  283. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  123 

real  to  the  convert.  Heretofore  he  has  'knowledge 
about'  them;  now  he  has  'acquaintance  with'  them. 
The  world  or  God  has  meaning  for  him,  and  makes 
response  now.  He  is  no  mere  repetition  of  the  past, 
for  the  individual  is  a  new  and  unique  one,  and  this 
experience  as  his  is  as  fresh  as  the  creation  morn 
itself."* 

All  these  facts  relating  to  the  rationale  of  conver- 
sion it  is  well  for  the  personal  worker  to  know,  but  all 
that  the  sinner  needs  is  to  know  how  hateful  is  his  sin 
in  the  eyes  of  his  Heavenly  Father,  and  that  if  he  turns 
his  face  resolutely  toward  God  in  Christ,  He  is  able 
to  cleanse  him  from  sin  and  to  empower  him  for  a 
new  life  of  righteousness  and  victory.  Books  of  re- 
ligious psychology,  like  those  above  referred  to,  and 
books  narrating  cases  of  actual  transformations,  like 
C.  G.  Finney's  Memoirs  and  S.  H.  Hadley's  Down 
in  Water  Street,  in  the  United  States,  and  the  writ- 
ings of  Harold  Begbie  and  General  Booth  in  England, 
abound  in  illustrations  of  conversions  where  there  was 
little  or  nothing  of  the  theological  belief,  but  only  a 
loathing  of  sin,  the  confession  of  utter  helplessness 
unless  through  the  aid  of  some  higher  Helper,  then 

*'G.  A.  Coe,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  315.     Quoted 
in  The  Biblical  Review,  New  York,  April,  1918,  pp.  214,  215. 


124  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

2l  hand  stretched  upward  and  the  consciousness  that 
Another  had  grasped  the  hand,  and  that  thereafter 
freedom,  and  strength  and  peace  had  come.  The  last 
phase  of  Hadley's  conversion,  as  abridged  from  his 
own  account  by  James,  may  be  quoted  as  typical : 

''1  listened  to  the  testimony  of  twenty-five  or 
thirty  persons,  everyone  of  whom  had  been  saved 
from  ruin,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  be 
saved  or  die  right  there.  When  the  invitation  was 
given,  I  knelt  down  with  a  crowd  of  drunkards. 
Jerry  made  the  first  prayer.  Then  Mrs.  McAuley 
prayed  fervently  for  us.  Oh,  what  a  conflict  was 
going  on  for  my  poor  soul !  A  blessed  whisper  said, 
"Come,"  the  devil  said,  "Be  careful."  I  halted  but 
a  moment,  and  then,  with  a  breaking  heart,  I  said, 
"Dear  Jesus,  can  you  help  me?"  Never  with  mortal 
tongue  can  I  describe  that  moment.  Although  up  to 
that  my  soul  had  been  filled  with  indescribable  gloom, 
I  felt  the  glorious  brightness  of  the  noonday  sun  shine 
into  my  heart.  I  felt  I  was  a  free  man.  Oh,  the 
precious  feehng  of  safety,  of  freedom,  of  resting  on 
Jesus !  I  felt  that  Christ  with  all  His  brightness  and 
power  had  come  into  my  life;  that  indeed,  old  things 
had  passed  away  and  all  things  had  become  new. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  125 

''From  that  moment  till  now  I  have  never  wanted 
a  drink  of  whiskey,  and  1  have  never  seen  money 
enough  to  make  me  take  one.  I  promised  God  that 
night  that  if  He  would  take  away  the  appetite  for 
strong  drink,  I  would  work  for  Him  all  my  life.  He 
has  done  His  part,  and  I  have  been  trying  to  do 
mine.'"*" 

To  show  how  similar  is  the  experience  of  conver- 
sion at  opposite  ends  of  the  world  and  in  utterly 
different  types  of  character,  in  the  American  drunk- 
ard and  in  the  greatest  scholar  that  Indian  woman- 
hood has  produced,  let  me  give  a  few  quotations  from 
the  autobiography  of  Pandita  Ramabai.  After  telling 
how,  largely  through  reading  the  Bible,  she  was 
drawn  to  the  religion  of  Jesus,  was  baptised,  and  ex- 
perienced comparative  happiness  for  a  number  of 
years,  becoming,  however,  increasingly  dissatisfied  as 
she  realised  that  she  had  the  religion  of  Jesus  but 
not  Christ  Himself,  she  goes  on — 

"I  was  desperate,  I  realised  that  I  was  not  pre- 
pared to  meet  God,  that  sin  had  dominion  over  me,  and 
I  was  not  altogether  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
had  no  witness  of  the  Spirit  that  I  was  a  child  of  God. 

*  Varieties  of  Religious  Experiences,  pp.  202,  203. 


126  S,OUL  -  SU RGBRY 

"What  was  to  be  done?  My  thoughts  could  not, 
and  did  not,  help  me.  I  had  at  last  come  to  an  end  of 
myself,  and  unconditionally  surrendered  myself  to  the 
Saviour ;  and  asked  Him  to  be  merciful  to  me,  and  to 
become  my  Righteousness  and  Redemption,  and  to 
take  away  all  my  sin. 

"Only  those  who  have  been  convicted  of  sin  and 
have  seen  themselves  as  God  sees  them,  under  similar 
circumstances,  can  understand  what  one  feels,  when  a 
great  and  unbearable  burden  is  rolled  away  from 
one's  heart.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  how  and 
what  1  felt,  at  the  time  when  I  made  an  unconditional 
surrender,  and  knew  I  was  accepted  to  be  a  branch  of 
the  True  Vine,  a  child  of  God  by  adoption  in  Christ 
Jesus  my  Saviour.  Although  it  is  impossible  for  me 
to  tell  all  that  God  has  done  for  me,  I  must  yet 
praise  Him  and  thank  Him  for  His  loving  kindness 
to  me,  the  greatest  of  sinners.  The  Lord,  first  of  all, 
showed  me  the  sinfulness  of  sin,  and  the  awful  danger 
I  was  in  of  everlasting  hell-fire;  and  the  great  love 
of  God  with  which  He  so  loved  the  world  that  He 
gave  His  only  begotten  Son. 

'*I  do  not  know  if  any  one  of  my  readers  has  ever 
had  the  experience  of  being  shut  up  in  a  room,  where 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  127 

there  was  nothing  but  thick  darkness,  and  then  grop- 
ing in  it  to  find  something  of  which  he  or  she  was  in 
dire  need.  I  can  think  of  no  one  but  the  Wind  man, 
whose  story  is  given  in  St.  John  9.  He  was  born 
bHnd  and  remained  so  for  forty  years  of  his  Hfe ;  and 
then  suddenly  he  found  the  Mighty  One,  who  could 
give  him  eyesight.  Who  could  have  described  his 
joy  at  seeing  the  daylight,  when  there  had  not  been 
a  particle  of  hope  of  his  ever  seeing  it?  Even  the 
inspired  evangelist  has  not  attempted  to  do  it.  I  can 
give  only  a  faint  idea  of  what  I  felt,  when  my  mental 
eyes  were  opened,  and  when  I,  who  was  'sitting  in 
darkness  saw  Great  Light,'  and  when  I  felt  sure  that 
to  me,  who  but  a  few  moments  ago  *sat  in  the  region 
and  shadow  of  death,  light  had  sprung  up.'  I  was 
very  like  the  man  who  was  told,  'In  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  of  Nazareth,  rise  up  and  walk.'  'And  he,  leap- 
ing up,  stood,  and  walked,  and  entered  with  them  into 
the  temple,  walking  and  leaping,  and  praising  God."* 
From  such  illustrations  as  this  we  see  that,  as  Mr. 
Buchman  puts  the  matter  in  the  simplest  terms,  only 

*  Pandita  Ramabai :  A  Testimony,  pp.  18,  19.     Mutki  Mis- 
sion Press,  Kedgaon,  1917. 


ia8  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

three  essential  factors  are  involved  in  conversion — Sin, 
Jesus  Christ,  and  (the  result)  a  Miracle.  Conviction 
of  sin  is  a  matter  of  the  sinner's  heart.  Conversion  is 
a  matter  both  of  the  heart  and  the  will,  and  if  there  is 
anything  we  can  do  to  assist  him  to  make  the  great 
venture  of  faith,  once  he  has  realised  his  sins  at  the 
foot  of  the  Cross  and  expressed  the  desire  to  be 
cleansed,  it  is,  first  of  all,  to  give  him  autobiographical 
writings  like  those  of  St.  Augustine,  Brother  Lawrence 
and  iolstoy,  and  illustrations  of  others  who  have  so 
ventured  with  momentous  results;  and,  secondly,  to 
help  him  toward  greater  decision  of  character  through 
the  reading  of  such  pamphlets  as  Foster's  Decision  of 
Character;  King's  Fight  for  Character;  Mott  and 
Eddy's  Constructive  Suggestions  for  Character  Build- 
ing and  the  chapter  on  "Decision"  in  Speer's  Things 
That  Make  a  Man.*' 

Here,  too,  of  course,  as  at  every  other  point,  we 
must  remember  that  our  greatest  service  will  be  ren- 
dered through  the  medium  of  intercessory  prayer.  A 
personal  experience  of  Rev.  William  Jessup,  of  Syria, 
told  by  Dr.  Howard  Agnew  Johnson,  will  illustrate 

*  All  these  pamphlets  can  be  secured  from  the  Association 
Press,  Calcutta. 


SOUL  -  SURGBRY  129 

the  importance  of  recognizing  that  the  work  is  God's 
and  that  our  first  duty  is  to  co-operate  in  prayer. 

"Just  ten  years  ago  I  was  in  Syria,  and  one  day 
visited  the  home  of  WiUiam  Jessup,  that  splendid 
missionary  of  the  Cross,  a  son  of  Henry  Jessup,  who 
had  been  there  for  fifty  years.  We  were  speaking  of 
these  things,  and  he  told  us  this — 

"  'Some  months  ago  I  was  very  much  depressed 
and  discouraged.  There  were  a  number  of  men  around 
here  that  I  had  not  been  able  to  win  for  Jesus  Christ, 
and  I  wondered  why.  I  knew  the  difficulty  must  be 
in  me,  that  it  was  not  in  God.  So  I  decided  finally 
that  I  would  take  a  week  and  let  God  teach  me  the 
thing  that  I  needed  to  know.  On  Monday  morning 
I  took  my  Bible  and  began  to  turn  it  over  to  see  what 
God  would  say.'  He  had  not  gone  far,  he  said,  be- 
fore something  dawned  on  him  that  he  had  never 
realized  before — that  he  had  not  given  God  His  place 
in  his  thought  of  the  work  to  be  done  in  winning 
these  people  to  Christ.  He  thought  of  the  account 
of  the  fall  of  Jericho  before  the  children  of  Israel. 
God  brought  that  about  in  a  way  that  no  one  should 
be  able  to  think  that  it  was  a  man's  work  so  that  these 
Gentiles  should  realize  that  the  God  of  this  peculiar 


I30  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

people  is  a  mighty  God,  and  would  like  to  have  Him 
for  their  God.  God  wanted  to  have  Israel  a  channel 
through  which  He  could  give  His  love  and  His  salva- 
tion to  everyone  else. 

''Mr.  Jessup  said,  as  this  fact  dawned  on  him  that 
morning  he  closed  his  Bible  and  took  a  sheet  of  paper, 
and  wrote  the  names  of  the  men  in  that  locality  whom 
he  had  been  trying  to  win  to  Jesus  Christ.  And  he 
lifted  them  up  to  God,  and  asked  God  to  do  His  work 
in  those  lives,  to  use  him  as  He  wished,  but  to  enable 
him  to  realize  that  his  was  the  smaller  part  in  that 
great  task.  And  as  he  continued  through  the  Book, 
the  thought  grew  upon  him  that  he  had  not  realized 
before  that  God,  and  not  he,  William  Jessup,  was  the 
one  who  was  to  do  that  work. 

''On  Friday  of  that  week  a  young  man,  whose 
name  was  on  that  list,  came  to  him  burdened  about  his 
soul,  and  about  his  father,  whose  name  was  also  on 
the  list.  The  missionary  realized  that  God  was  work- 
ing. 

"  'Even  yet,'  he  said,  'I  am  shamed  to  say  I  did 
not  fully  believe  that  God  was  going  to  do  all.  On 
Monday  morning  of  the  following  week  I  started  out, 


SOUL  '  SURGERY  131 

and  in  three  weeks  God  gave  every  one  of  those  eleven 
men  whose  names  were  on  that  Hst  to  Jesus  Christ.'  " 

''  '1  will  be  a  different  sort  of  a  missionary,'  he  con- 
tinued, 'for  the  rest  of  my  life.  I  have  a  new  vision 
of  what  it  is  to  have  a  God  who  can  and  who  will 


*  From  an  address  by  Dr.  Johnson,  quoted  in  Victory  in 
Christ,  A  Report  of  the  Princeton  Conference  of  1916,  p.  194 
*  Advetitures  of  the  Christian  Soul,  p.  95. 


5. 

Conservation 

Here  is  where,  perhaps  the  greatest  service  can 
and  should  be  done  by  the  personal  worker,  and  where 
he  most  frequently  and  lamentably  falls  down.  Mr. 
Saunders  brings  out  the  fact  that  the  tendency  in  some 
circles  to  belittle  the  work  of  the  "revivalist,"  because 
he  "appeals  to  the  emotions,"  shows  a  lack  of  knowl- 
edge of  all  that  is  involved  in  conversion.  He  writes : 
"The  emotions  to  which  the  revivalist  appeals  are  the 
core  of  the  religious  nature  of  man,  and  in  many  of 
his  audience,  in  whom  the  will  is  warped  and  the  in- 
tellect stunted,  to  what  shall  he  appeal  except  the  emo- 
tions?" But  he  then  goes  on  to  point  out  that  the 
trouble  with  the  revival  is  that  it  too  often  stops  at  this 
stage.  "Sterile  emotions  are  not  religion,  and  sup- 
pressed emotion,  which  is  given  no  opportunity  of 
expressing  itself,  too  often  forms  a  complex  which  will 
later  express  itself  in  undesirable  ways."*  Every 
psychologist  understands  the  danger  of  an  emotional 
arousal  which  finds  no  expression  in  practical  activity. 
This  holds  as  true  of  any  sermon  or  religious  confer- 
ence, in  which  an  emotional  appeal  is  made,  as  of 
an  evangelistic  address  when  conversion  is  the  object. 
The  new  convert  should  receive  the  most  sedulous  at- 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  133 

tendon  in  the  days  following  his  conversion,  if  he 
is  not  to  prove  one  more  of  the  sad  examples  of  back- 
sliders (far  less  numerous  than  many  believe  and 
usually  the  result  of  superficial  evangelism  or  imper- 
fect conservation)  who  are  pointed  out  in  deprecation 
of  evangelistic  efforts.  It  is  the  testimony  of  many 
that  just  after  we  have  taken  some  forward  step,  in- 
volving the  attempt  to  live  our  lives  thenceforth  on  a 
higher  moral  level,  the  Tempter  is  most  powerful  and 
insidious  in  his  efforts  to  drag  us  down. 

To  quote  Mr.  Saunders  again:  "The  convert 
knows,  perhaps,  deeper  and  more  intense  joy  than  the 
man  who  has  always  been  religious,  but  he  knows 
also  more  profound  grief,  and  a  spiritual  'dryness' 
which  is  the  peculiar  trial  of  those  who  have  come 
through  great  religious  experiences.  God  seems  for 
a  time  to  withdraw  His  Presence.  And  there  are  very 
often  desperate  struggles  in  store  for  the  convert; 
'those  haunting  reminiscences  of  a  polluted  heart — 
those  frailties,  those  inconsistencies,  to  which  the 
habits  of  the  past  have  made  him  liable.'  "*  Dr. 
Fosdick,  in  his  study  of  "Faith  and  Moods,"  in  The 
Meaning  of  Faith,  makes  the  point  that  the  accep- 
*  Adventures  of  the  Christian  Soul,  pp.  93,  94. 


134  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

tance  of  the  Christian  faith  means  the  determination 
to  beHeve  the  testimony,  and  Hve  in  the  spirit  of  our 
best  hours,  instead  of  allowing  lower  and  weaker 
moods  to  dominate  our  spirits.  It  is  for  us  to  help 
the  new  convert  to  see  how  he  can  keep  habitually  in 
the  higher  altitudes  of  faith,  resisting  the  tendency  to 
give  way  to  unworthy  moods, — and  how,  when  dark 
times  of  trouble  descend  upon  him,  it  is  true  that 

"The  task  in  hours  of  insight  willed 
Must  be  through  hours  of  gloom  fulfilled." 

This  will  only  be  possible  as  he  learns  the  need, 
for  his  spiritual  as  well  as  for  his  physical  sustenance 
and  development,  of  receiving  continuously  air,  food 
and  exercise  to  quote  Sherwood  Eddy's  suggestive 
parallel. 

We  shall  keep  at  our  best,  as  President  King,  of 
Oberlin,  says,  only  as  we  persistently  "stay  in  the 
presence  of  the  best" — that  is,  supremely,  of  Christ. 
Hence  the  importance  of  prayer  as  a  daily  exercise 
and  a  life-long  study.  In  prayer  we  breathe  the  tonic 
air  of  faith  that  defies  every  temptation  to  doubt  and 
fear.  In  prayer  our  souls  become  assured  that  while 
zve  may  fail  God,  He  never  fails  us,  that  though  we 
may  at  times  feel  no  solacing  sense  of  His  nearness, 


SOUL  •  SURGBRY  135 

it  does  not  indicate  that  He  has  drawn  away  from  us, 
but  rather,  perhaps,  that  we  have  begun  to  Hve  by 
feehng  rather  than  by  faith.  Drummond,  in  one  of 
his  addresses  to  students,  is  reported  to  have  said : 

"1  cannot  guarantee  that  the  stars  will  shine 
brighter  when  you  leave  this  hall  tonight,  or  that 
when  you  wake  tomorrow  a  new  world  will  open 
before  you.  But  I  do  guarantee  that  Christ  will 
keep  that  tvhich  you  have  committed  to  Him.  He 
will  keep  His  promise,  and  you  will  find  something 
real  and  dependable  to  rely  on  and  to  lead  you  away 
from  documental  evidence  to  Him  who  speaks  to  you 
in  your  hearts  at  this  moment. 

"Gentlemen,  He  will  be  your  leader.  He  will  be 
your  guide,  He  will  be  your  highest  ideal.  He  has 
asked  you  for  your  life,  and  He  will  make  you  just  as 
you  are  at  this  moment  His — entirely  His."* 

First  of  all,  then,  we  must  guide  the  convert  into 
a  real  and  continuous  and  developing  prayer  life. 

In  the  second  place,  the  new  convert  must  learn 

to  feed  his  soul,  day  by  day,  on  God's  living  Word 

revealed  in  the  Scriptures ;  and  here,  too,  he  cannot  be 

left  to  himself,  but  needs  and  will  usually  welcome 

*  Life  of  Drummond,  p.  522. 


136  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

friendly  guidance.  Recently  one  of  the  most  successful 
and  ardent  personal  workers  I  know,  among  women, 
was  telling  me  of  her  brother's  experience.  He  was 
converted  in  a  series  of  revival  meetings  during  the 
period  of  adolescence,  when  conversion  is  most  natural 
and  hopeful.  He  was  instructed  that  he  must  read 
his  Bible  daily,  and  was  then  left  to  shift  for  himself. 
Boy-like,  he  began  with  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 
intending  to  read  the  entire  Bible  through  in  daily 
portions.  He  read  faithfully  for  a  number  of  weeks, 
and  then  one  day  tossed  the  Bible  across  the  room 
with  the  remark  that  he  did  not  believe  a  single  word 
of  it.  This  was  many  years  ago,  he  is  now  a  middle- 
aged  man  with  a  family,  but  from  that  hour  to  the 
present  moment  his  life  has  proclaimed  his  later  belief 
that  the  Bible  is  a  myth,  that  there  is  no  God,  and  that 
the  wisest  man  is  he  who  extracts  the  largest  amount 
of  worldly  pleasure  from  each  passing  day.  He  has 
been  impervious  to  every  attempt  of  Christian  rela- 
tions and  friends  to  move  him  once  more  in  the  direc- 
tion of  religious  faith.  His  sister  is  certain  that,  had 
he  been  wisely  guided  in  his  first  Bible  study,  his  in- 
fant faith  would  have  grown  normally  into  maturity, 
instead  of  very  speedily  starving  to  death  through  lack 
of  the  right  spiritual  sustenance.    We  must  be  ready 


SOUL  '  SURGERY  137 

with  practical  suggestions  for  progressive  Bible  study, 
adapted  to  the  mind  and  temper  of  the  one  for  whose 
building  up  in  the  faith  we  are  responsible  in  God's 
eyes. 

In  the  third  place — and  here  most  of  all  we  are 
prone  to  fail  in  this  work  of  individual  conservation — 
following  conversion  the  new  convert  must  be  set  to 
Vv^ork  to  win  others.  This  will  be  both  the  test  of  the 
reality  of  his  new  experience  and  one  of  the  surest 
safeguards  against  its  soon  becoming  unreal.  He 
should  understand  from  the  first  that  his  prayer  and 
Bible  study  will  ultimately  become  burdensome,  if 
not  actually  distasteful,  if  he  regards  them  only  as 
a  means  to  his  own  spiritual  development,  and  not 
also  as  fundamentally  and  inevitably  the  means  to  his 
successfully  serving  and  winning  others.  The  central 
pivot  around  which  his  life  revolves  must  now  be  not 
self  but  others,  not  serving  his  own  interests  or  de- 
velopment but  serving  and  winning  others,  so  that  the 
major  emphasis  should  be  placed  on  the  third  require- 
ment, exercise,  thought  of,  however,  not  as  "setting 
up  exercises"  but  as  "wearing  out  shoe-leather"  in  the 
interests  of  God's  Kingdom.  Let  the  new  convert  un- 
derstand at  the  outset,  what  many  of  us  have  had  to 
learn  after  many  years,  at  painful  cost,  that  the  only 


138  SOUl  -  SURGERY 

way  to  live  a  normal,  buoyant  developing  Christian 
life  is  to  be  constantly  a  missionary  of  Christ  to  others. 
Says  Drummond's  biographer  of  his  meetings  for 
students:  "One  of  the  finest  features  of  the  move- 
ment, however,  was  the  large  number  of  the  men 
affected  by  it  who  set  themselves,  often  at  great  sacri- 
fice, to  win  their  fellow-students  for  Christ."* 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that  if  we 
would  teach  persistance  to  the  convert,  we  must  our- 
selves have  learned  its  value  and  attained  to  its  prac- 
tice. It  is  one  of  the  first  principles  of  personal 
evangelism,  not  only  in  the  period  of  conservation  but 
at  every  other  stage  of  our  work.  Have  we  the  un- 
discourageable  persistence  of  love  that,  like  Francis 
Thompson's  "Hound  of  Heaven,"  pursues  the  object 
of  its  affection  "down  the  arches  of  the  years,"  until 
at  last,  in  the  poem,  man  yields  to  the  Divine  Lover, 
to  be  told : 

How  little  worthy  of  any  love  thou  art! 
Whom  wilt  thou  find  to  love  ignoble  thee, 

Save  Me,  save  only  Me? 
All  which  I  took  from  thee  I  did  but  take. 

Not  for  thy  harms. 
But  just  that  thou  might  seek  it  in  My  arms. 

All  which  thy  child's  mistake 
Fancied  as  lost,  I  have  stored  for  thee  at  Home : 

Rise,  clasp  My  hand,  and  come ! 
*  Smith :  Life  of  Drummond,  p.  364. 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  139 

So  George  Matheson's  familiar  hymn  begins,  "Oh 
love  that  will  not  let  me  go."  Has  our  love  for  those 
we  have  been  led  to  seek  to  woo  and  win  been  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  divine  love  in  its  ardent  relentlessness — if 
need  be  through  many  years  and  coimtless  disappoint- 
ments ? 

A  story  told  by  Drummond  in  a  public  address  in 
America  is  worth  giving  in  full,  to  illustrate  this  point 
of  pertinacity  in  personal  work. 

"One  night  I  got  a  letter  from  one  of  the  students 
of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  page  after  page  of 
agnosticism  and  atheism.  I  went  over  to  see  him, 
and  spent  a  whole  afternoon  with  him,  and  did  not 
make  the  slightest  impression.  At  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity we  have  a  Students'  Evangelistic  Meeting  on 
Sunday  nights,  at  which  there  are  eight  hundred  or 
one  thousand  men  present.  A  few  nights  after  this 
I  saw  that  man  in  the  meeting,  and  next  to  him  sat 
another  man  whom  1  had  seen  occasionally  at  the 
meetings.  I  did  not  know  his  name,  but  I  wanted  to 
find  out  more  about  my  sceptic,  so  when  the  meeting 
was  over,  I  went  up  to  him  and  said,  'Do  you  happen 

to  know  T     'Yes,'  he  replied,  'it  is  he  that  has 

brought  me  to  Edinbugh.     Are  you  an  old  friend?' 


I40  SOUL  -  SURGBRY 

I  asked.  'I  am  an  American,  a  graduate  of  an  Ameri- 
can university,'  he  said.  'After  I  had  finished  there  I 
wanted  to  take  a  post-graduate  course,  and  finally 
decided  to  come  to  Edinburgh.  In  the  dissecting- 
room  I  happened  to  be  placed  next  to  ,  and  1 

took  a  singular  liking  for  him.  I  found  out  that  he 
was  a  man  of  very  remarkable  ability,  though  not  a 
religious  man,  and  1  thought  I  might  be  able  to  do 
something  for  him.  A  year  passed,  and  he  was  just 
where  I  found  him.'  He  certainly  was  blind  enough,  be- 
cause it  was  only  two  or  three  weeks  before  that  that 
he  wrote  me  that  letter.  'I  think  you  said,'  I  resumed, 
*that  you  only  came  here  to  take  a  year  of  the  post- 
graduate course  ?'  'Well,'  he  said,  'I  packed  my  trunks 
to  go  home,  and  I  thought  of  this  friend,  and  I  won- 
dered whether  a  year  of  my  life  would  be  better  spent 
to  go  and  start  in  my  profession  in  America,  or  to  stay 
in  Edinburgh  and  try  to  win  that  one  man  for  Christ, 
and  I  stayed.'  Well,'  I  said,  *my  dear  fellow,  it  will 
pay  you ;  you  will  get  that  man.'  Two  or  three  months 
passed,  and  it  came  to  the  last  night  of  our  meetings. 
We  have  men  in  Edinburgh  from  every  part  of  the 
world.  Every  year  five  or  six  hundred  of  them  go 
out  never  to  meet  again,  and  in  our  religious  work  we 


SOUL  -  SURGURY  141 

get  very  close  to  one  another,  and  on  the  last  night 
of  the  year  we  sit  down  together  in  our  common  hall 
to  the  Lord's  Supper.  This  is  entirely  a  students' 
meeting.  On  that  night  we  get  in  the  members  of  the 
Theological  Faculty,  so  that  things  may  be  done  de- 
cently and  in  order.  Hundreds  of  men  are  there,  the 
cream  of  the  youth  of  the  world,  sitting  down  at  the 
Lord's  table.  Many  of  them  are  not  members  of  the 
Church,  but  are  ther«  for  the  first  time  pledging 
themselves  to  become  members  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  I  saw sitting  down  and  handing  the  com- 
munion cup  to  his  American  friend.  He  had  got  his 
man.  A  week  after  he  was  back  in  his  own  country. 
I  do  not  know  his  name ;  he  made  no  impression  in 
our  country,  nobody  knew  him.  He  was  a  subject  of 
Christ's  Kingdom,  doing  his  work  in  silence  and  in 

humility.     A   few   weeks  passed  and  came  to 

see  me.  I  said,  'What  do  you  come  here  for?'  He 
said,  *I  want  to  tell  you  I  am  going  to  be  a  medical 
missionary.'  It  was  worth  a  year,  was  it  not?"* 
Drummond  himself  would  often  make  the  journey 
from  Edinburgh  to  Glasgow  just  to  talk  with  one  man 
who  needed  his  help. 

*  Smith :  Life  of  Drummond,  pp.  364,  366. 


142  SOUL  -SURGERY 

One  of  the  romances  of  recent  evangelism  in  the 
United  States  has  been  the  story  of  how  Professor 
Henry  Wright,  with  the  assistance  of  young  men  from 
Yale  University  who  have  summered  with  him,  has 
changed  the  entire  character  of  the  New  England  town 
where  most  of  his  summers  have  been  spent,  winning, 
one  by  one,  after  ceaseless  prayer  and  varied  ap- 
proaches, the  most  hostile  and  godless  among  the  in- 
habitants. In  the  spring  of  1917,  to  illustrate  this 
very  subject  of  persistence  in  personal  work,  I  heard 
Dr.  Wright  read  extracts  from  a  letter  received  the 
preceding  week  from  the  man,  in  the  village  above 
referred  to,  who  from  the  beginning  had  been  most 
bitter  and  uncharitable  in  his  opposition  to  every  move- 
ment toward  better  things.  Dr.  Wright  and  others 
had  for  years  been  praying  for  him  constantly,  and 
in  this  letter  he  expressed  his  entire  surrender  to  God 
and  dedication  of  his  life  to  furthering  the  programme 
of  His  Kingdom. 

One  excuse  we  often  make  for  failing  to  follow 
people  up,  either  before  or  after  conversion,  is  the 
fact  that  we  have  been  separated  from  them  so  that 
we  naturally  cease  further  to  work  for  them.  The 
proverb  holds  true  for  us,  *'Out  of  sight,  out  of  minds." 


SOUL-SURGERY  143 

But  here  enter  the  possibilities  of  the  great  ministry 
of  correspondence,  where  very  often  as  much  can  be 
accompHshed  as  in  personal  conversation  if  the  writ- 
ing and  sending  of  the  letters  is  born  and  followed 
up  in  prayer.  May  I  give  here  a  personal  experience 
in  my  undergraduate  days :  I  was  once  writing  letters 
in  the  correspondence  room  of  the  Hotel  Northfield, 
during  one  of  the  summer  conferences,  when  a  man 
whom  I  did  not  know  came  in,  seated  himself  at  the 
table,  drew  some  writing  paper  toward  him,  and  then 
for  some  minutes  remained  with  his  hand  over  his 
eyes,  obviously  engaged  in  prayer  before  beginning 
to  write.  At  that  time  I  do  not  suppose  I  had  ever 
in  my  life  prayed  about  a  letter  I  had  written,  and 
that  simple  act,  so  natural  and  unconscious,  affected 
me  more,  and  has  been  remembered  longer,  than  any 
of  the  conference  addresses  I  listened  to.  Afterward 
I  came  to  know  that  the  man  who  had  so  unconsciously 
helped  me  was  the  late  John  Forman,  of  Mainpuri, 
whose  Christ-filled  life  has  been  an  inspiration  to  so 
many  thousands.  It  was  a  letter  written  by  a  friend 
in  response  to  the  impulse  of  the  Spirit  that  brought 
conviction  of  sin  to  Dr.  Henry  Clay  Trumbull.  Let 
me  give  one  other  personal  experience,   relating  to 


144  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

another  preacher  of  the  Gospel  who  happily  is  still 
with  us:  Eleven  years  ago  I  crossed  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  on  the  same  boat  with  the  distinguished 
Chicago  preacher,  Dr.  F.  W.  Gunsaulus.  When  liv- 
ing in  Chicago  as  a  youth  I  had  often  heard  him 
preach,  and  had  come  to  know  him  slightly.  Now, 
with  characteristic  friendliness  and  interest  in  the 
individuals  around  him,  he  made  the  six  days'  journey 
memorable  for  me  through  many  conversations,  in 
which  he  gave  lavishly  of  his  rich  store  of  experiences 
in  the  realms  of  friendship,  art,  poetry  and  religion, 
as  though  he  were  addressing  an  audience  instead 
of  a  single  insignificant  student  in  theology.  The 
preceding  two  Sundays,  in  London,  I  had  heard  him 
preach  three  tremendous  sermons  in  the  City  Temple ; 
and  in  our  conversations  he  referred,  in  some  con- 
nection, to  the  vast  pile  of  letters  which  the  sermons 
had  brought  to  his  desk.  I  ventured  to  suggest  that 
since  it  was  his  vacation  he  could  not,  of  course,  think 
of  answering  those  letters  personally.  He  looked  at 
me  a  moment,  then  exclaimed:  'What  are  we  here 
for?'  and  turned  and  walked  away  up  the  deck. 
Later  he  told  me  that  he  had  answered  or  would 
answer  every  one.    I  remembered  then  how  a  letter  I 


SOUL  '  SURGERY  i4S 

had  written  him,  after  a  sermon  in  the  Auditorium  in 
Chicago  seven  years  before,  brought  an  immediate 
and  most  helpful  response. 

A  certain  religious  journal  once  inaugurated 
among  its  readers  a  'Xeague  of  the  Golden  Pen," 
whose  members  agreed  to  consecrate  their  pens  to 
Christ's  service,  in  innumerable  ways  that  thought 
and  prayer  might  suggest.  We  cannot  read  the  pub- 
lished correspondence  of  men  like  Drummond  and 
Forbes  Robinson  and  Thring  of  Uppingham  without 
asking  ourselves  whether  we  have  made  the  largest 
possible  use  of  this  self-multiplying  agency  in  our 
work  for  individuals? 

We  must  close,  where  we  began,  with  reiterating 
the  statement  that  the  ultimate  measure  of  our  suc- 
cessful service  in  spreading  the  Evangel  can  only  be 
the  measure  of  our  full  appropriation  of  the  Truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus.  As  the  author  of  Bcce  Homo 
brought  out  so  clearly,  half  a  century  ago,  the  coming 
of  Christ  into  the  world  gave  birth  among  men  to  a 
new  "enthusiasm  for  humanity,"  a  new  and  passionate 
love  for  individuals,  irrespective  of  race  or  creed  or 
social  station,  a  new  brotherhood  of  men  who  looked 
upon  all  other  men  as  their  brothers  for  whom,  as  for 


146  SOUL  -  SURGERY 

themselves,  Christ  died.  They  realised  that  the  debt 
they  owed  to  Christ  could  be  discharged  only  as  they 
passed  on  to  others  the  same  privileges  of  freedom 
and  friendship  and  hope  that  had  come  to  them 
through  Christ's  life  and  death  and  resurrection.  St. 
Paul  is  the  great  exemplar  for  all  time  and  for  all 
men  of  this  new  passion  and  its  inevitable  effect,  still- 
ing the  old  restlessness  of  the  soul  that  is  without 
a  sense  of  God's  loving  companionship,  only  to  awaken 
a  new  divine  restlessness  that  would  share  with  all  the 
world  its  glorious  experience  of  God's  love.  All  this, 
Myers  has  caught  for  us  in  the  stirring  lines  of  St. 
Paul: 

"Oft  when  the  word  is  on  me  to  deliver, 

Lifts  the  illusion  and  the  truth  lies  bare; 
Desert  or  throng,  the  city  or  the  river, 
Melts  in  a  lucid  paradise  of  air, — 

Only  like  souls  I  see  the  folk  thereunder, 

Bound  who  should  conquer,  slaves  who  should  be  kings 
Hearing  their  one  hope  with  an  empty  wonder, 

Sadly  contented  in  a  show  of  things, — 

Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 

Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet  call, 
O  to  save  these !  to  perish  for  their  saving, 

Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all ! 


SOUL  -  SURGERY  147 

Therefore,  O  Lord,  I  will  not  fail  nor  falter; 

Nay,  but  I  ask  it,  nay,  but  I  desire; 
Lay  on  my  lips  Thine  embers  of  the  altar, 

Seal  with  the  sting,  and  furnish  with  the  fire ; 

Quick,  in  a  moment,  infinite  forever. 

Send  an  arousal  better  than  I  pray; 
Give  me  a  grace  upon  the  faint  endeavor, 

Souls  for  my  hire  and  Pentecost  today.' 


XLl)C  Oreat  Ipbi^stclan 


At  even,  ere  the  sun  was  set, 
The  sick,  O  Lord,  around  Thee    lay; 

Oh,  in  what  divers  pains  they  met! 
O,  with  what  joy  they  went  away! 

Once  more  'tis  eventide,  and  we, 
Oppressed  with  various  ills,  draw  near ; 

What  if  Thy  form  we  cannot  see? 
We  know  and  feel  that  Thou  are  here. 

O  Saviour  Christ,  our  woes  dispel. 
For  some  are  sick,  and  some  are  sad. 

And  some  have  never  loved  Thee  well, 
And  some  have  lost  the  love  they  had. 

And  some  have  found  the  world  is  vain, 
Yet  from  the  world  they  break  not  free, 

And  some  have  friends  who  give  them  pain, 
Yet  have  not  sought  a  friend  in  Thee. 

And  none,  O  Lord,  have  perfect  rest, 
For  none  are  wholly  free  from  sin; 

And  they  who  fain  would  serve  the  best 
Are  conscious  most  of  wrong  within. 

O  Saviour  Christ,  Thou  too  art  Man; 

Thou  hast  been  troubled,  tempted,  tried ; 
Thy  kind  but  searching  glance  can  scan 

The  very  wounds  that  shame  would  hide. 

Thy  touch  has  still  its  ancient  power; 

No  word  from  Thee  can  fruitless  fall; 
Hear,  in  this  solemn  evening  hour, 

And  in  Thy  mercy  heal  us  all. 

—H.  Twells 


TLhc  Secon&  TToucb 

Mark  8  :  25 

(To  F.  N.  D.  B.) 

The  blind  man,  sunk  in  sordid  helplessness, 

A  sound  of  footsteps  caught. 
"The  Healer  comes,"  they  cried,  and  through  the  press 

The  hapless  wretch  they  brought. 
With  wild  hope,  born  of  uttermost  distress, 

The  healing  touch  he  sought. 
A  hand  reached  forth  in  potent  tenderness — 

The  miracle  was  wrought. 

Strangely  he  stares.     "What  dost  thou  see?"  they  cry 

"I  see  men  walk  as  trees." 
Again  the  cool  hand  strokes  each  aching  eye; 

The  last  dim  shadow  flees ; 
Not  moving  shapes  but  live  men  drawing  nigh, 

Now  glad  and  clear  he  sees, 
And  tells  to  each  how  God's  own  Son  came  by 

And  healed  his  dire  disease. 

Dungeoned  by  self,  we  too  besought  His  hand, 

Our  shuttered  eyes  to  free. 
His  touch  bestowed,  vast,  stricken  crowds  we  scanned, 

And  guessed  their  misery. 
Lord  Christ,  Thy  second  touch  our  hearts  demand, 

Each  separate  soul  to  see, 
His  wounds  to  salve,  his  wants  to  understand, 

And  lead  him  home  to  Thee.  H.  A.  W. 


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